Every day, countless postcards are sent out and numerous phone calls are made by doctors’ offices. Somewhere, there is a woman due for a teeth cleaning, eye exam or pap smear; just to name a few. If you add up all the hours we sit in ugly yellow rooms reading outdated magazines, it comes out to one entire year. Well, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. Unless, of course, you happen to be a hypochondriac. In that case, get the lobotomy and be done with it.

By the way, is it petty of me to want more current magazines in the waiting room? It doesn’t have to be this month’s edition. However, I’d at least like to look at celebrity wedding photos of celebrities who haven’t been divorced for ten months. I might be getting life-altering bad news in an hour. Must I be forced to relive the heartache of Brad and Jen’s divorce on top of that?

Ah fi. No oblen oh ar. Em na eelin in-ting. You know what that is? The answer to the question the dentist asks you when he has his hand in your mouth and gauze wrapped around your tongue. Even if there’s nothing in my mouth, the last thing I feel like doing is talking, anyway. At this point, my gums are still throbbing after the Edward Scissorhands of a dental hygienist has just scraped the enamel off my teeth with her hook. Word of advice: Close your eyes during the high-powered buffing. It’s rather disconcerting when anything from your mouth lodges in your eye.

Speaking of your eye, don’t forget to get both of those checked every year. While there really isn’t much in the way of physical pain at the optometrist, there is one test that is mildly uncomfortable. This would be the glaucoma test. If you’ve never had one, basically it entails resting your head on a hard chin guard and trying not to blink as a machine shoots a puff of air into your eye. If they want to see me flinch, why don’t they just hide behind the door and yell “BOO!” when I walk in?

In fact, the entire exam is rather odd if you think about it; puffs of air, reading the wall with a plastic spoon over your eye, looking at three-dimensional floating shapes, trying to make out numbers in colored dot patterns. Are they checking my eyes or trying to see if I take acid?

What about all of the hard hitting questions? It’s like an aptitude test. What’s the smallest line you can read? Is this one better or is that one better? Tell me when the dots touch. How many fingers? Which line seems darker? Where’s Waldo? Do you take acid? If you do take acid, are the fingers I’m holding up still attached to my hand or are they floating in mid-air around my head?

If you’re really feeling adventurous, have them dilate your pupils. For three or four hours you can look like a reptile. Because of super sensitivity to light, you’re given a really neat pair of cardboard sunglasses. Fortunately, I have the foresight to wear my Star Trek uniform to my appointments. Otherwise, I’d feel really weird walking around wearing silly glasses.

One good thing the dentist and the eye doctor have in common: No scale. There’s no avoiding the weigh-in at other doctors’ offices. I have to admit, I’ve purposely avoided trying to figure out how that upright, sliding scale works. There’s a reason for that. I don’t want to know what it says! Why does the nurse have to announce my weight? If someone else absolutely has to know how much I weigh, I’d rather they keep it to themselves. I feel no pressing need to know how close I am to having to use the meat scale down in the loading dock.

I had to laugh when I overheard one woman using the old, “take ten pounds off for my shoes”. Okay, if you’re wearing a Frankenstein costume, or you’ve just scored that gig as the new bass player for Kiss, maybe take eight pounds for the shoes. Otherwise honey, those flip flops weigh about two ounces – tops.

Now let’s talk about the worst exam of all. Men and women may both have teeth and eyes. But get lower than that, it becomes a whole new ballgame. Don’t get me wrong. Anytime the doctor snaps on a pair of latex gloves and grabs a jar of lube, it’s going to make anyone – male or female – want to head for the exit. But honestly, no man will ever know the special indignity of a pap smear. I don’t care how many times they have to cough during a physical, men know nothing!

Nevertheless, despite the fact that they’ve never had to endure the pap smear, it’s painfully obvious that a man orchestrated the entire process. Think about it. You put a great deal of effort into shaving your legs and you end up naked before the whole thing is over. Enough said.

The least they could do is give me a nice gown. (Something in light blue perhaps. I look good in pastels.) Instead, I get a paper towel with arm holes. It never fits right either. I can only cover one, complete breast at a time. While waiting, I just keep shifting it back and forth, hoping it won’t tear. If that happens, I guess I could resort to wrapping myself in the paper that covers the exam table. That is, if I can get it unstuck from my ass. It always rips while I’m making that near-impossible scootching-down-while-in-stirrups maneuver. No matter how hard I try to get far enough to the end of the table BEFORE I have to hook my feet in the stirrups I still have to somehow find the leverage to move my entire body with the power of just my heels. It’s kind of like trying to do pullups with your pinkies.

I had this gynecologist one time, who was very chatty during the exam. I’m not sure if he was talking to me or my vagina. Neither one of us felt very talkative. If I want step-by-step descriptions of a procedure, I’ll watch Bob Ross paint. When it comes to a pap smear, git ‘er done. There’s only so long I can sit naked and stuck to that paper before I begin to lose that fresh feeling.

These are just some of the tortures I put myself through each year. Every once in awhile, there’s a little something extra – like an endometrial biopsy. All I have to say about that is it really is possible to fit a jackhammer in your uterus. Who knew?

Actually, I’m lucky that I’ve yet to experience some of the really fun tests; namely a mammogram and a colonoscopy. One day though, my time will come, so I figure it’s best to practice for them now. In order to ready myself for a mammogram, I’ve been lying down on my side in the driveway and having someone back over my breast with my car. That ought to toughen me up. Thank God I have a few years before I have to start practicing for that colonoscopy.

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© Beth Wiesemann. No portion of this article may be reproduced without the author's permission.