Vinson: Elly May goes to med school

By MIKE VINSON

Unscrupulous yet influential Hollywood banker Milburn Drysdale spent weeks setting up the interview: Banker Drysdale had pressured the Dean of Admissions for UCLA's medical school, Dr. Ismael Geffen, to grant Ellie May Clampett an interview on the ruse of her being admitted into UCLA's renowned medical school program.

Dr. Geffen had met the Clampett clan--Jed, Granny, Jethro, and Elly May--at a social event the Drysdales had thrown at their swank Beverly Hills mansion, which was just a couple mansions over from the Clampett's even-swankier, 35-room mansion, the most opulent in Beverly Hills.

"The very idea, Milburn!" Dr. Geffen had howled over the telephone. "Those hideous, hee-haw, threadbare clothes they wear, and the utterly retarded comments they make! The little one they call Granny told me she was a doctor, and when I told her I was physician at UCLA, you know what her reply was?"

"What?" Banker Drysdale irritably asked.

"She said, 'Yeah, I can see L.A. All you gotta do, doc, is look outside and you'll see L.A., too. You might want to have your eyes checked.' proceeded to tell her UCLA stood for the University of California at Los Angeles, and she said she'd never been to a foreign country called that, but she'd like pay it a visit ... inbred buffoons, the whole lot!"

"Maybe so, Ismael," Drysdale sternly acknowledged, "but Elly May's father, Jed, though an uneducated hillbilly from Tennessee has fifteen billion in oil money in my bank ...and I thoroughly plan on it staying there! And must I remind you my bank holds a three-million-dollar mortgage on your home in Upper Laurel Canyon, plus a substantial note on your mistress's 2015 Bentley? I warned you about leaving your wife for a 30-year-old woman--25 years your junior!--who runs with the Kardashians."

"OK, Milburn," Dr. Geffen capitulated. "I suppose I have no other choice."

"Not a big deal, Ismael," Drysale consoled, cagily down-shifting the tense mood. "Granted, Elly May is 21-years-old, socially inept, can barely read and write, and has delusions of being a doctor just like her delusional grandmother. Merely go along with it, and that'll be that. I can promise you I will consider this a personal favor, and it will not be forgotten."

So, the mock interview was set up. Miss Jane Hathaway, Drysdale's long-time secretary and troubleshooter, drove Elly May Clampett to Dr. Geffen's office on the UCLA campus. A couple days prior to the interview, however, highly-educated, ever-fashion-conscious Hathaway had taken Elly May shopping at the high-end Escada Store of Beverly Hills.

When Elly May and Miss Hathaway entered Dr. Geffen's office, Elly May's buxomly, mermaid figure was outfitted in a plum-colored Cap-Sleeve Crisscross-Waist Dress, and black Jimmy Choo high heels with a plum-colored toe. A black Givenchy Leather Satchel Purse hung from her left wrist, drawing attention to her tanned, sinewy arms. Thick, natural-blond hair sat elegantly on her shoulders, the work of celebrity hairstylist Teddy Antolin.

"My God, she looks stunning, a young Jane Mansfield!" Dr. Geffen thought upon visual observation. Professionalism quickly prevailing over libido, Dr. Geffen cordially ushered Elly May into his private office and closed the door, while Miss Hathaway sat in the waiting room checking her Facebook. Dr. Geffen sat down in his recliner, and Elly May took a seat in a couch directly in front of Dr. Geffen's mahogany desk.

"Elly May," Dr. Geffen commenced, "I'm going to give you some medical terms--words, that is--and I want you to tell me what the words mean."

"Oh boy! Let's get 'er did!" Elly May exclaimed, smiling ear-to-ear.

Dr. Geffen: "Benign"?

Elly May: "What you be after you be eight."

Dr. Geffen: "Barium"?

Elly May: "What the funeral home does when one of yore patients dies."

Dr. Geffen: "Catscan"?

Elly May: "Searching for yore lost kitty."

Dr. Gefffen: "Dilate"?

Elly May: "To live long a long time."

Dr. Geffen: "Enema?"

Elly May: "Someone who's not a friend."

Dr. Geffen paused, sighed deeply, regained his composure, and continued.

Dr. Geffen: "Impotent"?

Elly May: "A famous person--like that cute Brad Pitt!"

Dr. Geffen: "Node"

Elly May: "Some'un I done knew about."

Dr. Geffen: "Post Operative"?

Elly May: "The feller who puts the letters from back home in the mailbox."

Dr. Geffen: "Tumor"?

Elly May: "One more than one more."

Dr. Geffen: "Varicose"?

Elly May: "It ain't very far away."

His expression an exhausted one, Dr. Geffen placed his elbows on his desk, forced a smile, leaned forward, and announced, "Elly May, you're a charming, beautiful, young lady, but, quite frankly, you do not have a dime's worth of common sense when it comes to medical terminology, which is what I must have to even consider you for medical school."

Smiling, Elly Mae gleefully replied, "Just a dime to go to school to be a doctor?! "I don't have none of that common sense kind of money, but I do have ten pennies I'll give you--here, let me look down in my fancy purse!"