House Calls Solution

by Ata Gurpinar

Each of the symptoms describe how a two-word phrase containing a body part might be interpreted as an ailment, presented in alphabetical order. The date on each card gives the enumeration of the two words, with the month representing the body part (which also fills in the blank):

• CHICKEN FINGER - The patient's [finger] is too scared and won't let them put on a ring.
• COLD SHOULDER - Purse straps freeze and break apart whenever the patient wears one on their [shoulder].
• CONVERSATION HEARTS - The patient's [hearts] (are they a Time Lord?) keep trying to make small talk before February.
• EAR WORM - A tubelike animal is blocking sound in the patient's right [ear].
• FUNNY BONE - The patient can't stop laughing at the stand-up comedy of their [bone].
• GREEN THUMB - The patient's left [thumb] is encrusted in emeralds and jade, which makes texting very difficult.
• HAND MIRROR - It is distracting for the patient to see their reflection every time they hold their [hand] up to their face.
• HIRED MUSCLE - The patient's [muscle] appears to have gained employment, and the patient does not know how to handle such strong income.
• LEG WARMER - One [leg] is at a slightly higher temperature than the patient's other one.
• LOOSE LIPS - No method of attachment seems to keep the patient's [lips] from falling off.
• ROCK BOTTOM - The patient complains that their [bottom] feels like it is made of stone and that it is too bumpy to sit comfortably.
• SHOWER HEAD - Water keeps spraying out of the patient's [head].
• SQUARE FEET - The patient cannot get their shoes on, because their [feet] are too four-sided.
• THIRD EYE - No matter how it looks like it will do, the patient's [eye] earns bronze in every contest it sees fit to participate in.
• TREASURE CHEST - The patient keeps finding coins and jewels on their [chest] whenever they take off their shit.
• WAIST BAND - The patient keeps hearing rock and roll music from their [waist], so they're avoiding using belts.

Each treatment clues a word for the enumeration given, also presented in alphabetical order. Two clues have ambiguous answers, but both resolve the same extracted solution.

• CLAW - Keep a hold of your bag with the back of a hammer. (4)
• CLOUDS - Get precipitation from puffy sky features instead. (6)
• COMMA (or) COLON - Put a punctuation mark between them to keep them connected. (5)
• COTTON - Cover it up with white fiber that light can't pass through too easily.
• CZECH - Get a resident from Prague to send messages on your behalf.
• DICE - Chip cubes off of it until it's smooth, and then use them to play some board games. (4)
• FACT - Get into a serious mindset by reading more things that are known to be true, as opposed to opinions. (5)
• HUMMUS - Balance it with the other by slathering some ground up chickpeas between them. (6)
• NERO - Hire a fiddler to coax it out, even if Rome burns around the two of you. (4)
• PLAID - Distract its opponents with a tartan pattern. (5)
• PSYCHOLOGIST (or) PSYCHIATRIST - Have them talk to a shrink instead. (12)
• PUMICE - Use a stone made of lava to round out their corners. (6)
• SPINACH - Pump up its confidence with Popeye's strength-building greens. (7)
• SQUID - Ask an inky creature to help with your finances. (5)
• TEXTBOOK - Look up their value in a student's manual of instruction. (8)
• TUNE - Sing your own melody replace their gig. (4)

Each clued word in a treatment can be matched with the non-body-part word of one the ailments by length and so that each matches on exactly one letter. Solvers can also use the entire treatment clue to semantically match the treatments to ailments. They match up as follows, in order by the patient names on the ailments (each with a letter A through P repeated multiple times):

Patient	Ailment	Body Part	Other Word	Treatment Entry	Matching Letter
Aatasi	THIRD EYE	EYE	THIRD	PLAID	D
Babbage	SHOWER HEAD	HEAD	SHOWER	CLOUDS	O
Ciccone	COLD SHOULDER	SHOULDER	COLD	CLAW	C
Dodd	TREASURE CHEST	CHEST	TREASURE	TEXTBOOK	T
Embree	LOOSE LIPS	LIPS	LOOSE	COMMA or COLON	O
Fitzloff	EAR WORM	EAR	WORM	NERO	R
Guggenheim	HAND MIRROR	HAND	MIRROR	COTTON	O
Highbaugh	FUNNY BONE	BONE	FUNNY	FAULT	F
Imaizumi	LEG WARMER	LEG	WARMER	HUMMUS	M
Jernjejic	GREEN THUMB	THUMB	GREEN	CZECH	E
Krakowski	HIRED MUSCLE	MUSCLE	HIRED	SQUID	D
Lutrell	CONVERSATION HEARTS	HEARTS	CONVERSATION	PSYCHIATRIST or PSYCHOLOGIST	I
McMilliam	ROCK BOTTOM	BOTTOM	ROCK	DICE	C
Nenni	CHICKEN FINGER	FINGER	CHICKEN	SPINACH	I
O'Connor	WAIST BAND	WAIST	BAND	TUNE	N
Philippe	SQUARE FEET	FEET	SQUARE	PUMICE	E

And so the matching spell out the puzzle solution DOCTOR OF MEDICINE.