Marbles Shmarbles
Today was my annual mammogram. It’s one of those enormously fun activities that women the world over look forward to. A technician manipulates our boobs into a vise and then says something hilarious like, “Don’t move,” as she walks slightly away to set the picture taking machine in motion.
I had a lovely technician this day, named Lisa. She managed not to cause me agonizing pain, as some others have, as she managed to manipulate my admittedly undersized boobs into place without also shoving in and then crushing my sternum. I was quietly grateful. But I couldn’t resist asking the question I’ve asked other technicians: “Anyone ever pull themselves out of one of these machines?” “Yes, twice, in fact.” Simply cannot wrap my mind around that. Nor can I figure out why no one has taken me up on my suggestion that a comparable experience be arranged for men, via a device I would lovingly call a “nutcracker.” Honestly, ‘mammogram’ could use some revising too. It’s so anodyne, so utterly unlike the thing that it is. How about “Boob Breaker” or something along those lines?
Anyhow, nothing I say is going to change how things are done, but I assure you that if men had to undergo mammograms…Then again, men AND women undergo colonoscopies, and no one has figured out how to make that disgusting prep stuff taste like a chocolate shake, so maybe it isn’t all a conspiracy against women.
But I digress, as usual. So my mammogram got done and because of my undersized AND dense boobs, I have to go for a sonogram too. And of course since I called to schedule the exams only about six months in advance, I could not get both appointments on the same day. So I get to go back again, an hour earlier this time. Which means I’ll likely be done before any of the nearby shops is open, making a mockery of my annual efforts to dull the annoyance/agony of a mammogram with a little retail therapy. Sigh…
Lest I forget, I started my office visit by staring at a form asking about my health history entirely unable to conjure the word for the thing that ovaries are in. I kid you not. I was trying accurately to report on my mother’s various cancers. I knew about the breast cancers (multiple times) and the lymphomas, but for the life of me I could not recall the name of the last one, which was the kind of cancer in the body part ovaries are in. So like the village idiot I increasingly am these days, I went up to the woman who checked me in and said, “I cannot think of the thing your ovaries are in. I know it starts with a U, but I keep thinking ‘urethra’ or ‘urine something’ which is know is wrong.” “Do you mean ‘uterus’?” “Yes, that’s it! Haven’t had my coffee yet.” Pathetic, I know, but I felt the need to blame something, so why not a lack of caffeine? No, of course that’s not why I couldn’t pull ‘uterus’ out of my head, my ass, my historic mental rolodex of used-this-word-a-hundred-times-before-and-even-had-one-in-my-own-body-before-it-was-removed-in-a-procedure-called-a...!?!??!?! That’s also not why my husband recently asked me in a fairly hostile manner why I’d gotten him a ladies shirt. “Ladies shirt? What are you talking about? I didn’t get you a ladies shirt.” “It’s right here on the label. Ladies.” “Can I have a look?” “Oh wait. It’s a large.”
As I often tell my husband — and our kids — if we make it to old age, those years are going to be brutal, if these years are any indication.