Doctor Bruce!!!!!!!

Sometimes an idea hits like wildfire. You can feel the power coursing through every capillary and wonder (sometimes even aloud) how you ever got along without having it in your life.

In certain rarefied instances, this power is permanent. A change is exquisitely made and life begins a new. Other times, the thought quickly fades, off to be dismissed as a passing fancy or fleeting by product of feelings and contributing factors. There is a third case, the instance where one acts and fails. You see your life, know what it could have been, and wish things would have turned out differently. You tried. You failed. You move on.

I was almost known as "Dr. Bruce." It wasn't meant to be.

*****

A few months ago, when embroiled in University and a passing case of the yellow fever, I put aside my daily dose of fun and got down to business. I was assigned a scene for my "Directing Actors" class and decided to take it seriously. I shot my previous scene in a 45 minute downpour of rain and dick jokes. I spent the entire time yelling at my actor's (my roommates) to stop smiling into the camera.

The scene turned out good, but not good enough.

In order to get anything out of the class I had to dedicate myself to this next scene. In order to understand how a good director works, I had to do something good. I picked my scene by pointing a finger at a friend's book.

I was holding auditions. It was the usual fair (yelling out the window, watching baseball on my computer) until a man named Bruce entered. He handed me a head shot. Browsing this past work and attributes I was struck by a picture of him sitting on the hood of a Porsche emblazoned with Arizona license plates reading "Dr. Bruce".

Then we had this conversation...

"Oh are you a Doctor?"
"Nah. I'm not a Doctor. I tried to get the plate to say "I LUV MUF but they wouldn't let me get it. They're strict in Arizona. I tried "Assman", "Boob job", even "Pssy Kng" but they stopped them all."
"My mom almost had her license plate say clet once. I told her it sounded a lot like clit and she didn't go through with it."
"That's too bad man, she' d have met a lot of men."

I pause for a moment picturing my Mom taking home men she met at stoplights. If they expressed a firm commitment to yard work, she just might.

"So why'd you get Doctor Bruce."
"I just got it man. It works though. I tell girls I'm a doctor and BAM! I'm in. My tags are expiring soon and I have to get it changed to a California plate."

*****

Driving back from an afternoon hike, sitting quietly in the back seat, so Modern Love could have their quiet, my mind began to play. I thought of Bruce and how his approach probably works for him. Then I saw it, burning through my mind, utterly preserved like my first taste of pirogi; the license plate.

Dr Bruce

"When we get home remind me to get a custom license plate."
"What are you gonna get?"
"Dr Bruce"
"Like that one guy?"
"Yeah!"
Laughs erupt. The prospect of getting a vanity plate to cock block a stranger, to steal his aura, and usurp his doctoral authority was too good to be true. Too perfect.

I got home and checked the registry. Dr Bruce was taken.

Oh Bruce! You Minx!

*****

This post was my attempt to satirize myself.