| | I've just been dashing here and there, kept busy by work, so I've only just now had time to tell you about my exciting visit to the doctor this past Monday. You see, it's been years - YEARS! - since I've been to the doctor. Nothing seems to be wrong with me, but I thought it would be a good idea to get some sort of baseline measurement so when something goes wrong in the future, we'll be able to figure out what's wrong.
Also, I'm going to Peru in July with my brother, and he said I need to make sure I get immunized against all the tropical diseases those dusky-skinned natives might give me, and to do it early in case the vaccines take time to kick in.
Last, but certainly not least, I've been bombarded with those luminescent moth-filled commercials begging me to "ask my doctor about Lunesta," and I always like to do what I'm told.
DKNY submitted this random photo. The man pictured looks like his college roommate, if his college roommate had shoved chopsticks up his nose in a failed attempt to be "wacky."
The Stump was able to recommend a doctor to me, which was way better than the "pick a doctor randomly from the immense and inscrutable provider directory from the insurance company" method I had planned on using, and on Monday I went to the Upper East side, coincidentally right as school was letting out, which I suspect is the reason I noticed two separate tubes of roll-on lip gloss in the three blocks from the subway to the doctor's office. One tube was on the subway steps, and the second tube flew out of some girl's pocket I walked past: she was gesticulating wildly on the street corner as she chatted to her school chums, and the lip gloss broke free and flew into the gutter.
Which reminds me, when I was on the exchange program in college and going to school in England, during spring break I bought a teen magazine which had a cover made entirely of peel-off stickers of Leonardo Decaprio and shrink-wrapped with a tube of roll-on lip gloss. [Just about every teen magazine in Europe is shrink-wrapped with some tatty gift - a necklace, perhaps, or some form of extremely cheap makeup.]
I really liked the magazine I bought, and the scenario suggested by the stickers and gloss. Can't you just picture it? Some thick-browed European teenager, just on the cusp of womanhood and confused by her changing body, buys an issue of EUROTEENBOPSTAR! and a Cadbury Flake chocolate bar at her corner magazine stand. She runs home to her bedroom, scarfs down the chocolate, leaving crumbs everywhere, and then just spends the rest of the afternoon staring at the photos of Leonardo Decaprio while she masturbates, rolling on more and more and more lip gloss until she just bursts in a cherry-scented sticky mess of pleasure. Then she puts the stickers on her school notebook, and every time she looks at those Leonardo stickers on her notebook in class, she feels a simultaneous mix of pleasure and shame. But that's another story, never mind, anyway....
It's been so long since I've been to the doctor I was kind of nervous, but this doctor was such a chatterbox that I was distracted for most of the time as he jabbered away about some patient of his who'd just been diagnosed with colon cancer, and when the time came for me to stand in front of him and pull my underpants off so he could fondle my manly parts, I had lost so much of my normal nervousness that I forgot to be embarrassed or shy. I mean, there have a been a very few, very memorable times in my life when that sort of behavior actually was sort of acceptable, but the lighting was a lot dimmer at the time, and that was years ago.
It must be strange to be a doctor, where every day it's normal and expected for you to handle a complete stranger's genitalia. I guess it's the one overlap between "a doctor's office" and "the backroom of some dingy bar on Avenue A." Or so I've heard...
I was glad he stopped groping when he did, or I could have run into something entirely embarrassing. I'll take it from here, sir! I mean, he wasn't attractive that way or anything like that, but it's been awhile since anyone's been down there, to be perfectly frank. I was glad that he'd managed to let slip the fact that he was married, or else the whole thing would have seemed entirely too much like the carefree days of my youth, especially since the floor of the exam room was disturbingly scuzzy.
I left the office excitedly clutching a prescription for 30 tabs of 5mg Ambien. Naturally, I ran immediately to get it filled, only to find out that my prescription drug coverage works via a special card that I didn't have, and the only way to order a new card is to call the toll-free number and enter your member number into their automated system. The member number was, quite naturally, listed on the card I didn't have that I was trying to order. The automated voice-recognition system refused to answer questions, and when I finally got through to a representative, she was at a loss as to how to locate my number, nor even to find my company's information, which is strange because they are a large, large company.
It's no wonder the elderly are so cranky all the time! They probably spend all day on the phone talking to insurance company automatons, simultaneously bored, yet frightened, the way that all technological advances - like answering machines and call waiting - frighten the elderly. Can't you just picture it? You can just see the dust settling onto their paper-thin skin as they sit on hold, fruitlessly hoping to get the pills they need to just to creak through another sad, lonely, incontinent day.
On Tuesday, I checked with our Human Resources department, who told me that our plan number is "[Name of company] plus the number 1" - that's the number Medco didn't know?!?! - and my member number is my social security number. Who knew? As with Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, the answer had been with me the whole time.... I clicked my heels and ran off to Duane Reade at lunch time.
Now, I'm sure you're wondering - "What's with the Ambien? Didn't you ask your doctor about Lunesta?" Well, I did, but he doctor seemed to prefer tried-and-tested Ambien over the relatively new Lunesta, despite the fact that Ambien doesn't promise a visit from a glowing moth. He did make the caveat that I should take it no more than 3 times a week, because can be addictive and also it will last longer that way, and I didn't think it was prudent to tell him I've taken things waaaay more addictive than Ambien, and some pussy little chopped-in-half sleeping pill was unlikely to give me the terrible Tuesdays. Of course, that just invited me to wonder, "Can't you give me 10mg pills, then? Those will last longest of all!" But I was wisely circumspect and remained silent.
But surprisingly, the half-pill worked, and I actually fell right to sleep on Tuesday night, awaking Wednesday before my alarm even went off, and without the normal urge to put coffee in my coffee to wake up, so that was a delightful, slightly late start to what has been a lovely, busy, yet mothless week.
That is all. |
