writing doodle - deeper and deeper down

As I expected, he wouldn't let go of those horrible, haunting words.  I tried to take a drink of water, but couldn't get my lips to close over the glass.  Good thing that I like wash and wear; I was probably going to wear more than half of the glass home, the rest was poured down the drain.

"So, Sam," the hypnotist said.

I put my hand up to stop him. "Gabe," I said.  "My name is Gabe."

He couldn't get my name right, but he could push all the rest of my buttons.  Maybe he was related to my second ex-wife or my former outlaw, I mean mother-in-law. That woman found all of my buttons in the first thirty seconds we met.  Too bad she didn't go away when the marriage ended. Then again, if it had rained money and she thought I was behind it, she would have had issues.

"Right.  That's it, Gabe. Right.  You're named for an archangel." He looked down at a desk calendar and flipped through a series of pages.  "We need to continue this next week. I want to desensitize you to these words so they don't hold you back in your every day life."

Right.  I was named for my grandfather's horse.  When I came out, I had an overly long face and moved my jaw a lot.  Good thing I didn't remind  him of his other horse, Goober, or the rest of the world would think I'd been named for a character in the Andy Griffith Show.  I know there are people out there who love their families, but sometimes mine is just too close.

By day, I'm a business analyst.  I talk to a series of spreadsheets every day, just numbers, formulas and graphs.  By night, I was wing man to a friend who just committed the 'm' word, marriage.  There is no problem handling Manny being married, goddess knows he waited long enough to find the right one; but he was treating it like something everyone should do until they got it right.  I did it three times before I was thirty-five.  The only thing I can say about marriage is that the end of it is expensive and I had only just paid off the last of the settlement with Joanne about six months ago.

"And you can call me Uriel," he said. He poked his thumb into his chest like I'd confuse him with someone else.

Uriel? Really?  Goddess bless.  "Family name?" I asked.

 "No, my mother channeled my name before I was born.  If I had been a woman, I would have been Maya."

Now my lips tingled, my shirt was damp, and I wanted to rub some kind of lotion on my skin.  My hives respond to three things: avoidance, olive oil directly applied, or bendadryl.  Oh, and sleep.  My body likes to sleep stress off or do other things that usually wind up with an exchange of vows that get broken immediately. 

"So your mother channeled the name Uriel?" I had no idea why I asked.  I had had no intention of engaging him in conversation.  There was a bottle of olive oil in the cupboard at home with my name on it. There was also a cold beer.

"No.  She came up with Dieter," he said, frowning.  "Dieter Goldstein just didn't have a good ring to it.  When I came of age, I chose Uriel."

I took a deep breath, knew I wasn't going to say anything else, and shoved my hand into my front pants' pocket.  Somewhere in the bowels of my pocket were my car keys. The sooner I discovered my keys, the sooner I'd be on my way home and have two beers. Maybe there was a baseball game on TV.  That would be mind numbing. Then again, this is November and the World Series ended not that long ago. Football?

"... and Uriel looked pretty hot on a Tarot deck I saw when I was younger," he said with a sigh.  "If I'm not going to look hot, I can at least get in touch with vicarious hotness."

Ginger ale.    I was going to have to stop by the store and get a bottle of ginger ale on my way home.  Maybe that would calm my stomach. Saltine crackers and ginger ale.  I would handle my nausea and upset stomach just like a pregnant woman from a movie in the 1960s.

"Back to the subject at hand, Sam," Uriel said.

I glared. 

"Gabe," he said, wincing.  "Sorry."

"No, I don't think we need to do this now, or ever," I said.  "It was," I took a deep breath, "interesting. Have a nice life." My keys finally dislodged from my pocket and flew across the room.  Why me? Why today? Why this guy?

"You don't understand," Uriel said, touching my forearm.  "This is a gift from your father.  Every week for the next six months or he remarries, which ever comes first."

Great, my father bought the crazy train and this guy was the engineer.  How deep was the drop from the caboose when it's really time to get off?