“Okay or Painless?” He handed my questionnaire back. The pen chained to the clipboard resembled a chrysalis, one of the silver ones that look dead until the pupa splits it.

“What’s the difference?” Gil had made the appointment. She said I needed to relax. She didn’t say how.

The receptionist pointed to a bisected observation area. Patients on the Okay side kicked with activity. They chatted and scribbled Notes to Self on spare napkins from the Dunkin’ next-door. Those on the Painless side slouched.

“You’re holding up the line.” The woman behind me smiled tightly, her overshirt hanging off one shoulder.

I turned back to the receptionist. “Real quick: which one do which people tend to choose, and why?”

He—Ptolemy, read the nameplate next to the mints, and his hauteur and hairlessness merited it—glowered. “I am not a brochure.”

“I assume the Okay one hurts more than the Painless?”

He waved the woman forward.

“Wait!”

Would the Okay injection make me welcomed in bed or sleep soundly on the couch–acceptable, or accepting? Did the Painless one silence arguments or nerves? And, knowing I’d derived whichever relief from a clinic behind the gas station, was Okay or Painless possible?

Their exclusivity felt made up, like the so-called randomness of pen in one hand, ring on the other.

I gave up the clipboard and left: windows cracked, coffee despite the hour, and a pocketful of mints.