4 November 2026
Wednesday. The morning after the Cup, and I have tidied away the sweepstake. Nobody won. Well. Somebody won. Nobody collected.
I ran it for yesterday’s patients on Collins Street. Lorraine read out the horses’ names in her warmest voice and each patient drew one from a little paper cup I slid under the door. They were very sporting about it, considering their hands were not entirely free at the time.
A horse race lasts about three minutes. My sessions last sixty. I explained to the patients that this gave them twenty times longer than a horse to reach the finish, and they did not find that as encouraging as I had hoped.
The front desk asks patients to arrive a quarter of an hour early, for the lockers and the rules and the friendly chat, and I support this. A patient who arrives in a rush begins therapy flustered. A patient who arrives early begins therapy merely anxious, which is ideal.
Note for next year: a bigger paper cup. And a better pen for the gentleman downstairs, who has asked to run a sweep of his own. Absolutely not.
— Your Therapist
