Dr. Fletcher

(writing notes) Marty's collie, Susan, died seven years ago. But he is unshakably convinced that he still needs to take time to deal with it.

Marty

I got invited to my cousin's wedding, which isn't too far away. It was on my calendar for a while. But when I woke up - this is last Tuesday - when I woke up in the morning I was thinking about Susan and my project with her. Maybe something to do with my dreams that night. You know how we wake up sometimes that way.

I didn't feel like going to the wedding. Actually I didn't want to because I know what's most important for me. Seemed right at the time. I called up my cousin and I couldn't tell him the truth. People don't understand. So I told him a lie.

I said - the first thing that came into my head. I hadn't thought about it ahead of time. Should have, I guess. Anyway, that I was at the Canadian border and I'd forgotten my passport. They had changed the rules.

Dr. Fletcher

Oh, boy. Is this something that has actually happened to you before?

Marty

Well, I don't travel much. You mean leaving things, forgetting things?

Dr. Fletcher

At any rate it's a good story, I guess, that you made up.

Marty

So I thought. Things haven't been going too well about remembering things. passports. Anyway, about ten minutes later I got a call from a friend of my cousin's who said that he had connections with passport people and he could arrange to get me across the border even though I didn't have the passport.

Dr. Fletcher

Oh, my.

Marty

I know. I was really stuck. So I had to say to him, 'Well, that's not the real reason.' So I made up another lie, the first one that came to my head, that the real reason I was stuck at the border is that I had these rare fruit trees in my trunk and they wouldn't let me cross the border without some kind of certification about the plants or something like that. And that's why I was stuck at the border.

Dr. Fletcher

That sounds like a better excuse, maybe.

Marty

Well, I thought so. But he said that he has a friend who's an arborist and he could arrange for the arborist to call somebody in Canada to show up and do the paperwork.

(shakes head)

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