A Ghost of Patients Past came in to haunt me yesterday. When last I saw little Jackie, she was a 15 year old pipsqueak, newly out of braces. I had just finished her orthodontics and bid her farewell. She said "See ya, Dr. Doofus!" as she laughed and headed out the door. She had hung that moniker around my neck two years prior. My assistant was having a hard time placing a band around one of Jackie's teeth and had come to me for help. I looked at the band and then at the tooth and said "You're trying to put that on the wrong tooth, and that's why it won't fit. It needs to go on a permanent tooth and you are trying to squeeze it onto a baby tooth, doofus!" Jackie was very protective of my assistant and shouted at me "Don't call her that! She's not a doofus! YOU'RE a doofus! Ha ha! Dr. Doofus!"
The name stuck.
Hence forth, every time Jackie came in for an ortho check, she asked me "How's it going, Dr. Doofus?" and had a nice giggle at my expense. When she completed her braces and left my office, I thought I was free. But now, here she was, ten years older and back in my chair, her mother by her side.
Her mother asked me how I had managed to stay looking exactly the same, even though I was ten years older. And Jackie agreed with her and told me I still looked like a doofus.
I asked myself (sadly) "Am I to be ever known as Dr. Doofus?"
That got me thinking. If someone were to make a movie of my life, who would play me? It wouldn't necessarily have to be someone who looked like me, and the flick wouldn't have to necessarily be 100% true to life. After all, Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford played Woodward and Bernstein in "All the President's Men" and those two reporters look more like circus clowns than Hollywood actors. And look at some of the other biographical and semi-biographical portrayals and the actors playing them. Sharon Stone was tapped to play a woman languishing on death row in "Last Dance" even though the woman upon whom the story was based bears a much closer resemblance to Jason Alexander than to Sharon Stone.
If I have any say over the matter, I would choose Russell Crowe to play the Fat Kid in the epic film based upon my life. It wouldn't be too hard for him. He already played a chubby guy in that anti-tobacco company movie (and a genius in another). He could channel some of his other roles into this one. For instance, Crowe-as-Maximus-as-Fat Kid-dentist could strut around, and shout to his patients "Are you not anesthetized? Are you not numb?"
If Russell is not available, maybe Val Kilmer would be up for it. He has already played a dentist in the form of Doc Holliday (coolest dentist ever) and he has coolness to spare, which means he could give some to me and not even miss it. Plus, if you've seen him recently, you'd think he was already prepping himself for the part (almost saying to me "I'm your Huckleberry")
However, like I said, Kilmer has already played an uber-sexy dentist and may not wish to venture into those waters again. In that case, we'd have to settle for Daniel Craig. He could play me with a suave sophistication that only someone with a British accent can pull off. Having all that James Bond stuff he could draw upon, he could smoothly enter the scene and introduce himself as "Double O Doofus. License to Fill."
Knowing my luck, the studio would get Jason Alexander to play me, and he'd be shouting "Serenity now! Serenity now!" throughout the movie. Then again, that actor and that expression would probably capture me the best.
