There's No Cure For Ridiculous

Today I had the distinct pleasure of visiting my family practitioner's office. If this office advertised, they would really be best served by using the slogan "Total Care: From Pap Smears to Papaw's Goiter." I wasn't actually there for an exam, but to have a pricey little chat with my PCP about my completely irrational and nonsensical fear that my heart is constantly about to burst, and/or that my stomach is going to explode and shoot acid at my heart.

That, right there, I really wish I could say I made up for the sake of posting something funny. The second part of that fear, about my stomach sniping off my heart, has now caused no fewer than four doctors to bite their lips in a feeble attempt not to laugh at a patient. So feeble.

Because checking in at the doctor's office requires a full NSA background check and subsequent fingerprint scan, I was left to marinate in the cauldron of communicable disease that is the waiting room for almost an hour, surrounded by sticky, sweaty mouth-breathers oozing this season's cold. In between slathering my hands with sanitizer that smelled like Pez, and snorting the sanitizer that smelled like Pez, I observed my fellow inmates. There was the woman ten feet away, swathed entirely in black velour, clutching something that looked like a baby booty, staring at it intently, and flicking her fingers at it rhythmically. For the first few minutes, I thought she was crocheting the end of the sock; then suddenly, I realized that she was meticulously picking off one of her fingernails, bit by freakish bit. The Black (Velour) Widow looked up from her handicraft and stared me down, the sock dangling menacingly off her tusk of a hangnail. I moved on.

Next to me was a little boy, sitting across from his mother. He was of the enchanting age at which kids are old enough to hold a coherent conversation, but not yet old enough for anyone who hasn't had a lobotomy to want to converse with them. After five minutes of shrill banter that the mother finally recognized was torture commensurate with watching "The View" for everyone around them, she switched the kid into sign language. I don't speak sign language (and really, who does?) but I can read words when they're spelled out, and for a few minutes, the mom spelled nothing but s-t-o-p i-t and c-a-l-m d-o-w-n. Then, she switched to harder fourth-grade words, and the kid began spelling the letters out l-o-u-d-l-y and o-b-n-o-x-i-o-u-s-l-y as she signed them, ruining the stealth aspect of the whole game and flicking the nerves of the other captives. I desperately wanted to sign over w-e c-a-n- h-e-a-r y-o-u, but I was terrified I would get the kid's attention, and give him the impression that I wanted to converse with him. In either language.

An hour and forty-five forms later, I was finally called back. (I'm pretty sure I filled out one of the forms wrong: I either designated my husband as authorized to pick up meds for me, or I designated myself as my own husband.) Then I had another half-hour to veg on a crunchy paper-topped exam table and think of ways to freak out the good doctor.

I could be completely nude when he walked in, which would be a double surprise, since I wasn't there to be examined or sketched by art students. I could remain fully clothed, but pull the stirrups out of the rodeo table, lay down, and put my feet in the stirrups. From this position I would greet him, carry out our entire conversation, and give thoughtful feedback. My favorite idea was, at the end of our encounter, to ask, "can I have a pap smear?" in the same tone as a little kid would ask "can I have a lollipop?". I really liked this one for the unpredictable possibilities it held.

In the end, I had to rule them all out. Option 1 was off the table because it was cold, and I don't like being naked. Option 2 bit the dust because I was worried that my three-inch heels would get caught in the stirrups and I'd die trying to dismount my steed. Option 3 failed because one of the unpredictable possibilities inherent to it was the chance that the doctor would say yes, and that was a chance I was just not willing to take. Not for you, beloved readers, and not for anyone else.

Oh, and also nixing all my carnival ideas? The fact that I grew up with this doctor's kids, a block from his house, and I'm pretty sure he still golfs with my dad.

All that just to learn that my heart's fine, and that another upstanding member of the medical community knows I'm crazy.