Editing 2850: Doctor's Office

{{comic
| number    = 2850
| date      = November 3, 2023
| title     = Doctor's Office
| image     = doctors_office_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x291px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = "The police told me I can't be a doctor, but whenever they show up I just go into the Google Maps settings page I found and change the house to 'Police Headquarters' and then they have to do what I say."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD - New comic, thus incomplete explanation. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In this comic, [[Beret Guy]] has discovered how to add public labels to locations on {{w|Google Maps}}. He has used the tool to label his house as a physician's office, and then proceeded to impersonate a physician. Cueball has, it seems, seen and trusted the label, and has arrived for a medical consultation - apparently, as a walk-in, an unheard-of situation for a physician's office in contemporary United States of America that is not an urgent-care facility, for which Beret Guy makes no claim. Thus, Cueball has bought into Beret Guy's bizarre vision, as is typical for Beret Guy comics.

It is soon apparent that Beret Guy has no medical credentials. His "librarian for bones and blood" line in the first panel is nonsensical. The terms he uses while taking Cueball's temperature (second panel) are simplistic, and his prescription for Cueball's fever farcical. In the third panel, he hands Cueball what's supposed to be a medical consent form, but is in fact a New York Times crossword puzzle. In the fourth panel, Cueball finally questions whether Beret Guy's claim is accurate, and the facts of the situation are revealed - while Beret Guy wheels in a (section of a) {{w|Magnetic resonance imaging}} (MRI) device (usually a feature of a hospital or medical laboratory, not an individual physician's office, and, assembled, far larger/heavier than one person can manage on a dolly) and wonders aloud what it is for.

In the title text, the police cite Beret Guy for impersonating a physician, but Beret Guy returns to Google Maps and relabels his house "Police Headquarters", thus (by implication) making himself Chief of Police to whose authority the officers must submit - by withdrawing the "impersonating a physician" charge. One is left to speculate when and whether Beret Guy will relabel his house the "White House", thus relieving himself of all possible civil and criminal charges in the manner of a certain prominent US politician.

Beret Guy's comment that "It's a Monday, so [the crossword]'s not too hard" refers to the observation that 
{{w|New York Times crossword puzzles}} increase in difficulty through the week, with the easiest on Monday and hardest on Saturday (there's also a larger Sunday puzzle, but it's in {{w|The New York Times Magazine}} rather than the newspaper, and is designed to be about as hard as a Thursday puzzle).

A physician imposter was also featured in [[699: Trimester]], while possibly authentic physicians behaving badly appear in [[938: T-Cells]], [[1471: Gut Fauna]], and [[1839: Doctor Visit]]. One can only hope that Randall doesn't have real-life models for these situations.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Beret Guy is sitting at a desk, wearing a lab coat. Cueball is walking in from the right.]
:Beret Guy: Welcome to the doctor!
:Beret Guy: We're like librarians, but for your bones and blood.

:[Beret Guy is holding a thermometer attached to a device in Cueball's mouth and a pill bottle.]
:Beret Guy: Uh-oh! This beeper says you're too hot.
:Beret Guy: You should eat some of these little snacks that make you colder.

:[Beret Guy is holding a pen, and Cueball is holding a clipboard with a crossword on it.]
:Beret Guy: We can make holes in you, but you have to fill out this form first.
:Cueball: This is a New York Times crossword.
:Beret Guy: Don't worry, it's a Monday, so it's not too hard.

:[Beret Guy is now dragging in a machine labeled "MRI" on a dolly.]
:Cueball: This '''''is''''' a doctor's office, right?
:Beret Guy: Yeah! It used to be my house, but I found the setting on Google Maps to change it.
:Beret Guy: Hey, wanna help find out what this box does? I bet it's loud!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Beret Guy's Business]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Medicine]]