For the Look

I’m slowly wrapping up my chiropractic and physical therapy for my lower back injury and I’m happy to say that I am probably at 80%. If I was in the NFL, I would be listed as probable, in MLB and NBA I would be taken off the disabled and inactive lists this weekend.

What struck me during this treatment process was that both the doctor and the physical therapist were in good shape which I found particularly comforting. A fat physical therapist or a hunched over chiropractor would have likely made any sane person immediately look for a new caretaker. But is this fair? Maybe the physical therapist knows the ins and outs of the human muscular structure, but has a glandular issue. Or the chiropractor recently had a car accident and had trouble standing up straight. Regardless of fairness, it’s safe to assume that their physical attributes would affect their business greatly.

I would assert that the same is true for a number of professions. Going to the barber and getting a stylist with an atrocious haircut or a having a dentist with yellow teeth would immediately make one question the aptitude of the individual. Again, there may be excuses for the atrocious haircut. Maybe only I viewed the haircut as awful but the rest of the world digs crooked Mohawks with a hint of a mullet. (A perfect example would be the football team at Hoover High from MTV’s Two-A-Days. It appears that the sweeping comb-over hairstyle is all the rage for males at Alabama high schools, and despite looking absolutely ridiculous, these dudes are the ones scoring the head cheerleaders, cool party chicks, and nerds that are only nerds because they wear glasses, but upon removal of their specs they turn into Rachel McAdams.)

So again, as always, appearances only tell half the story. Except for dentists. A dentist with a bad set of choppers is completely unacceptable. I acknowledge that this is a pretty elementary observation, but as I sit on a Southwest flight headed to Burbank, it felt worth noting.