Loyalty

I went to see my dermatologist today. She doesn’t like to waste time on actual medical diagnosis. Instead, she prefers to nuke anything suspicious with liquid nitrogen, courtesy of a device that looks like a blow torch. Generally speaking, I don’t have a problem with this. I don’t like to waste time, either, and the blow torch adds a nice element of drama.
I was reading a magazine in the waiting room. It was an issue of Time with Hillary Clinton on the cover. I took it with me and was reading it in the examination room when the doctor (I’ll call her Dr. J.) walked in. She poked at the magazine and hissed, “I despise her.”
This surprised me. If I were to make an assumption based on ethnicity, demographics, and gender, that assumption would have been that Dr. J. thought Hillary was A-O.K..
“Why?” I asked, after which Dr. J. launched into a ten minute invective packed with words like liar, scumbag, and monster, concluding with “if she gets the nomination, I’m voting for McCain.”
I didn’t know what to say. I happen to like Hillary. But Dr. J. is standing a foot away from me with the blow torch. She moves closer. “You have some sun damage on your nose. Let me take care of that for you.”

Today, I learned that the depth of my political loyalty falls somewhere between the second and third layer of my epidermis.