Transplants
Clinic waiting room. A big sign at the back reads ‘Transplant Clinic – Complaints Dept’. B, a man, sits there waiting. A, another man, enters.
A: Morning
B: Morning. (A sits. Pause) So what you in for then?
A: Heart.
B: Giving you trouble is it?
A: Trouble? Only been in three weeks, haven’t slept a wink.
B: What sort is it?
A: Athlete’s.
B: I heard they go like a bomb, athletes’ hearts.
A: You wouldn’t chuckle. Car backfired in the street the other day, next thing I know I’m hurdling the garden fence and breasting next door’s washing line.
B: Criminal isn’t it?
A: How about you?
B: Foot.
A: Bunion is it? Corn?
B: Have a whiff.
A: (sniffs B’s foot) Phor! Strewth!
B: Come in Tuesday with a fallen arch didn’t I? Thought, ‘Day or two in hospital, bit of osteopathy, lovely.’ What happens? They bung on this load of rubbish. It’s like walking round with a sock full of camembert. And I’m getting an ingrown toenail.
A: This is it. My wife, completely new set of legs last week. All she had was a ladder in her tights, forgot to take them off for the examination.
B: What’s the new ones like then, no good?
A: Bleeding ex-Arsenal striker wasn’t he? Great hairy things. Now every time the whistle goes on the kettle she starts kicking me in the balls.
B: I hope you complained?
A: I would, but it’s this hand.
B: Very nice.
A: Very nice? I’m right-handed. Bloke who owned this wasn’t. Can’t even clean me teeth now without getting toothpaste in my ear. I say my ear…
B: Don’t talk to me about ears.
A: About a quarter to, I think.
B: Yes, but they say it’ll clear up later on.
(enter a woman, C, wheezing)
C: Morning.
A & B: Morning.
B: Lungs is it, missus?
C: Third time this month.
A: You’d think they’d have got lungs sussed by now wouldn’t you, the amount people get through.
C: But this is it, running out of donors aren’t they? Cat’s, these are. Can’t so much as jump on a mouse these days without getting asthma.
A: You wouldn’t credit it.
B: My cousin Harry, there was a mix-up. Went in for a new pair of lungs, come out with a couple of pig bladders. Pig bladders! He didn’t half kick up a stink.
A: Bit like you and your foot.
B: Watch it. ‘It’s an experimental line,’ they said. Experimental line! I wouldn’t have his phlegm for love nor money. Minute he starts coughing now, I’m behind the sofa, no two ways.
C: It’s the kids I feel sorry for. My eldest, Lesley, went in for a bit of cosmetic surgery just before the wedding, come out with a couple of giraffe’s testicles nailed to her chest. She looks like bloody Dolly Parton in a Mae West.
A: Well, you get your money’s worth with them all right.
B: Roomy, giraffe’s testicles.
C: That’s as may be, she only went in to have her bum lifted. Should have seen her fiancée’s jaw drop as she come down the aisle. He’d only had it a week. ‘What’s this load of cobblers?’ he says. ‘Giraffe’s testicles? Who’s your bleedin’ doctor then, David bleedin’ Attenborough?’ Poor girl didn’t know where to put her face.
A: Neither did the trainee who saw our Jack.
B: I heard about this. Nose job originally, wasn’t it?
A: They didn’t have a clue. Wheel him into the operating theatre backwards, don’t they? Comes round from the anaesthetic next morning, one sneeze, blew his pants off. Our Beth can’t stand to be in same room with him, mealtimes.
B: Mind you, he always was a bit of a fartface, your Jack.
A: I often wonder if they haven’t taken this transplant business too far.
A: Aye.
B: Happen.
C: This is it.
(enter a NURSE)
NURSE: Sorry to keep you waiting. Mr Jenkins?
A & B & C: (all rise together) That’s me.
(they all stare at each other with a wild surmise)