Tongue-In-Cheek … Foot-In-Mouth

Guys, we all can agree that our yearly physicals can be a real pain in the butt, especially when your doctor comes at you with a snapped-on plastic glove, and with plans to poke at your prostate with his index finger using the same level of intensity and determination normally associated with a frantic 5th grader trying desperately to retrieve a lodged gumball out of a dispenser.

AND if anyone had ever told me that someday I would look back at this type of doctor digital discomfit with fond nostalgia, I would say they were “nuts.”  However, thanks to my most recent checkup, I now do.

SCENE

So there I was sitting in my doctor’s examination room, which I don’t like sitting in because I’m squeamish, and my squeamishness has to do with the fact that EVERY wall in EVERY doctor’s examination room is plastered with gross internal illustrations of partially dissected human bodies, which makes me think that ALL doctor’s examination rooms have been interior designed by Jack The Ripper, and hence my squeamishness.

Anyway, luckily, as an adult, who always tells his children “to not fiddle with things that do not belong to them;” I was able to take my mind of the fact that I was currently sitting in a room decorated by a slasher by fiddling with all the medical implements which did not belong to me.  Hey, I had an excuse.

First there was the stethoscope.  Now even Jessica Simpson knows that a stethoscope, much like “chicken of the sea,” are both made out of chicken.  ONLY KIDDING!  They are made out of turkey.  JUST JOKING!

No, seriously, even she knows stethoscopes are great for listening to internal organs which occasionally make rattling sounds.  But what about eavesdropping through hospital walls?   I bet you nobody has thought of that one.  Who knows, I might even hear something interesting.  And I did: the fat guy in the next room passing enough gas to single handily dissolve the ozone layer.

After I had finished flushing out my ears with battery acid, my doctor walked in, and we immediately started with the customary doctor-patient small talk, which according to a congressional mandate, must contain the word “good” in each inquiry and the word “good” in each subsequent response.

EXAMPLE

“Are you good?”

“I’m Good.  You good?”

“I’m Good.”

“Wife and kids good?”

“Everybody is good.”

“Good.”

Once we pass pleasantries he began to gently manhandle me by violently poking at me as if I were some sort of piñata.  This was followed by the old “turn your head and cough.”  Unfortunately, the man owns hands cold enough to make an ice cube shiver.  And I always fear frostbite on my “friend,” if you catch my drift.

Nevertheless, things were going okay—that was until he pulled out what appeared to be a garden hose, only slightly longer, wider, and thicker.  Call me “twit” and a “moron” (hey, I heard that) but whenever MY physician starts to advance towards me, while brandishing a piece of irrigation equipment, I get a little uneasy.  And I need someone to tell me where in the Hippocratic Oath is it written that your doctor can turn into “Carl Cultivation” right in the middle of a physical examination?  I mean, there I was, vulnerably standing with my pants down around my ankles (nice visual, huh) and my doctor was apparently planning on watering his weeping willow.  Gee, I don’t know doc; how about finishing up the physical and then landscaping your lilacs.

Perhaps it is just me, but you’d think a trained doctor could control his urge to act upon his horticultural hobby.  And gardening right in the middle of my examination was NOT the time.  However, I would soon find out that alleged hose was not designed to water vegetation; it was fabricated to find out how things were going inside (yikes) ME.

CONVERSATION

“Hey doc, what’s that the thing?”

“It’s a camera.”

“’A camera?’  It looks more like a garden hose?”

“It’s a medical camera used for taking pictures inside the human body.   And you’ve reached an age where it’s time to check out your intestinal health.”

“’Check out my intestinal health?’  Okay, I’ll play along.  How exactly do you propose getting that camera inside me?  I’m not swallowing that thing.”

“You don’t have to swallow it, silly.”

“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.”

“We put some lubricant on it and place it right in there.”  (Point)

“There?  There!  THERE!”  (Point)  Oh, no you don’t.”

“Look, it’s no big deal—”

“‘’IT’S NO BIG DEAL!’  You’re planning on shoving a sewer pipe up THERE and you think that’s ‘no big deal.’  Well, I’d sure hate to find out what you think IS a big deal.”

“Look Bill—”

“Don’t ‘Look Bill’ me.  That hose—”

“It’s a camera not a hose.”

“Hose, camera, xylophone, I don’t care what you call it; you are NOT going to shove it, or anything else, in THERE!  That’s an exit only orifice!”

But anyway, after the net dropped on me and sedative from the tranquilizer dart kicked in the doctor was able to inspect me.  Fortunately, everything checked out fine.

But I have a sneaky horticultural hunch he planted microwavable popping corn in my colon, you know, as payback for all the plant-potting aggravation I had given him.   And now every time I come across an active microwave, I dive for the nearest cover fearing that a stray ray might come in contact with, and activate the corn kernels, which would result in my “popping” of a pile of popcorn.

I wonder if Orville Redenbacher started his kernel kingdom that way.