Anybody Got Any Short'nin' Bread?

So I went to the doctor for my "Health & Wellness Visit"... which is like a physical, but with a longer name... and fewer awkward moments.

I got to finally mention all of the things I've been wanting to ask my doctor about for a while, so that was nice.

They didn't want me to eat anything for twelve hours, which is easy to do when you make the appointment for fairly early in the morning and you don't keep much in the way of food in the house. But because they asked this of me, I started wondering last night if this meant anything in particular... especially involving the digestion system... and more specifically, the end bit of it.

So I called Say, who was busy working a crazy-long day and thus didn't answer. I left her a message asking if the doctor was going to do that thing where I'd at least like a little sweet talk before he started, and said some other stuff and left it at that. I was at rehearsal, so when Say didn't call back for a while, I found Mark, who is a nurse, and asked him. He assured me it was all about blood work, not butt work.

Say confirmed this on a message she left after I called her again during the break to ask how she could abandon me in the middle of a medical emergency like this...

Imagine my discomfort this morning, then, when the nurse got out some rubber gloves and a tube of... I'm trying to think of a non-gross-sounding word for it... and I've failed, so we'll move on.

She said, "I'll get these out, just in case..." and left the room.

Now that was a fun wait. There is some mental preparation that goes into this. I mean, I hardly know the man...

Sorry for the delay that you didn't notice because it happened as I was typing this, not as you were reading it. I was just cracking myself up with all the possible next lines. I've opted to just pretend I didn't just set up a bawdy joke.

So he comes in, we go through all the questions and the awkward non-hind-end touching that goes with a "Health and Wellness Visit"... which is all above the waist, for those of you with your mind in the gutter... or at least below the waist. And I ask my questions, and he asks counter-questions, and the whole time the pair of gloves and the tube of whatever are just hanging there in the air between us, the elephant in the room, as it were. But, you know, and elephant that can hang in the air sort of thing.

Finally, he points to the items and says, "We're not going to do that today. I think they just get those out to scare people."

I sighed a big sigh of relief, and then immediately felt bad, so I said, "Don't get me wrong. I do like you, but as a friend only..."

I kid.

Anyway, nothing exciting to report. All of the little this'n'thats I was asking about were either answered with, "We can do that if you want, but you're okay if you don't" or "Losing weight and exercising will help with that", and for the most part I called all of those in the second category before I even went in to see him.

I am going to do another sleep study, even though the one 5 years ago was enough to get me on a whatchamahookey... because it was 5 years ago and I never got on a whatchamahookey.

I'm looking forward to it, however. Apparently there are many health benefits to a good night's sleep.