Doctors and patience

After much procrastination – three years to be exact - mom ran out of excuses, and finally scheduled her physical.

It’s not that she dislikes being examined; OK, she is afraid of needles, but mom will willingly let you collect all the blood samples you want, pee happily into a cup, tabulate her menstrual cycle and candidly answer questions about her preferred method of birth control. She’ll even insist to an apologetic doctor, “Don’t worry about it. I really didn’t mind waiting for over an hour, even though I arrived 10 minutes early for my appointment; really, I didn’t!” In short, the woman will do anything and almost everything save put her feet up on stirrups and display her wares to a latex-gloved stranger.

Steeling herself for the ordeal, mom ate lunch with care that afternoon, deliberately avoiding beans and broccoli and other flatulence-inducing foods. She arrived early, flipped through magazines in the waiting room, smiled when the nurse butchered her name, and lay down cold and naked under a white sheet in the examination room.

Listening to imaginary lounge music while waiting for the doctor, mom looked up to find a picture postcard of snow-capped mountains taped to the white ceiling, directly above her head. Somebody extremely thoughtful had had a brainwave that staring at the Swiss Alps during a pap smear would help women open up and get the juices flowing. Obviously, this person has never heard of a Brad Pitt or a Tom Cruise. Heck, even Angelina Jolie or a half-clad Mariah Carey would do, under extreme circumstances.

Mom closed her eyes and allowed pleasant images to invade her mind. Breathing deeply, she thoughts of the kids, me and finally, dad.

She thought about his shy smile and gentle hands, the smell of his heady antiperspirant, the way he blushes when she catches him ogling, the mean roast potatoes he can whip up, the way his stubble scratched her lips that morning …. Thinking back to that morning, mom’s thoughts took a slight detour and lingered on the image of the wet bath towel dad had flung on the bathroom floor instead of hanging on the rack. A slight irritation mounted inside her. “Why is it so difficult to hang the towel on the rod?” she thought. “And why is it next to impossible for him to put a new roll of toilet paper in the holder instead of setting it on top of the old one? Or empty the dishwasher, for that matter? Or clear the table? Or put away the laundry? Or recycle the newspapers after he's done reading ….”

Her train of thoughts was interrupted by the doctor breezing in and getting down to business. The dreaded examination lasted all of two minutes. The entire consultation came in under seven minutes - considerably lesser than the amount of time mom had spent in the waiting room trying to politely avoid a runny-nosed baby who insisted on cooing at her, and his monster brother who was having a major meltdown on the dirty carpet.

“You did great! Everything looks great! I’ll see you same time next year!” said the doctor, before sailing away to her next patient.

“Not unless you change that ridiculous picture on the ceiling,” thought mom, smiling sweetly at the departing doctor.