Page 26 of The Holidays with Dr. Mitchell
“I just don’t understand why you’re up there preaching how money is the reason we’re losing our marriages while your cute little prison camp takes a substantial amount of that in order to train us not to depend on it for our well-being and happiness?”
“Excellent point,” Collin agreed in my assessment that this was all a big scam.
“You will learn to appreciate the reason you paid the high price of this program. When you learn that, and after sacrificingtime alone with your wives, you will also understand that it was not money that ruined or saved your marriage. Money is energy. You must expel that energy from your minds and lives to achieve the proper…”
The man’s voice drifted into the background of my mind, and I glanced over at Collin, wondering how thefuckhe and I were going to survive this shit. I didn’t speakor thinkin this manner at all. I was a fucking surgeon, for shit’s sake, a scientist. Everything in my world was black and white and tangible. If my wife had a smile on her face after I took her to dinner, that meant she was happy. If my wife was pissed that I missed John’s band recital, she worethatlook on her face, too.
Suddenly, I was supposed to comprehend stupid shit like money being energy? Money paid the bills. Money put food on the damn table. Money was the only fucking way people could survive in any economy. I was lucky to have more of it than ninety-nine percent of the population, but I wasn’tin lovewith it. If that’s what this dumb hippie fucker was insinuating, he was wrong.
What the fuck was I doing here? I was going to chalk this up as theoneprank my brother had ever pulled off, and I would take immense joy in paying him back for it.
CHAPTER 14
Jake
“You awake?” I heard Collin whisper from the bunk above mine.
I had almost drifted off to sleep, and now this.
“No,” I tried to keep my mind from rousing too much. The more I slept, the quicker this would be over.
The next thing I knew, Collin’s head was hanging over his bed, and the moonlight that shone through the thatched walls of our jungle hut gave me the perfect silhouette of my best friend’s restless face.
“What the fuck are we going to do?”
“Sleep. Kill our egos. Get back to our wives,” I said, closing my eyes.
“You realize the shit they gave us to eat tonight is supposed to cleanse our bowels, right?”
“That’s what all detox places say at these little spiritual movements. Trust me, papaya and senna leaf teas are just hype. We’ll be fine.”
“We’re fucked, man,” he said.
“We’re going to be fucked if we can’t fake it to make it in this hellish situation.”
“No. You know Kimberly, my RN? You’ve met her, right?”
“You mean the one who tried to seduce your married ass?” I asked. “Didn’t she get fired over that?”
“Yeah, but before she mistook my kindness for interest, she confided in me about this particular detox process she went through. She told me that she shitted her brains out for twenty-four hours straight after drinking that tea.”
“Damn. You twodidget close if you had a woman confide in you about her poop,” I answered. “No wonder you’re on this joyride to hell with me.”
“Never mind that,” Collin said. “When that dude named Kavah made us drink that tea and he used the word senna, it reminded me of her and the stuff she took. Although the stuff she took was calledSmooth Move.”
“Well, it’s a wonder you got out of the grievance she filed against you when you backed out of the relationship that she saidyouled her on with. She wasobviouslybaring her soul to you. You’re such a tease.”
“I’m being fucking serious, dude,” he said.
“So am I,” I answered. “And I’m trying to go to sleep so I don’t go ape shit tomorrow when they feed us blended grass for breakfast.”
“While you were in conversation with that poor bastard whose marriage isactuallyin legit trouble,” he continued, ignoring me, “I was paying attention to the road we were taking to get here. We could get back to where our wives are, get kicked the fuck out of this place, and be home in two days to beat everyone’s ass who planned this prank.”
“Two days?”
“That’s including the flight.”
“Knowing my brother and the rest of those assholes, they already know we will come up with some stupid plan like that. Jim won’t let the jet leave until we’ve done our time, man. We’re fucked.”
