I am loving the annual physical right now. I am 19 years old, and despite the fact that I may not be the most mature 19-year-old on the block, that hardly merits my having a pediatrician. But yes, thanks to the laziness of not wanting to change doctors, here I am about to enter a room where the average age of the patients is smaller than my shoe size.
Four singing silver balloons and a man dressed as a clown meet me as I walk into the office. He smiles manically at me and points to the reception area. I don’t really like his attitude, but I follow where his finger is pointing, to the waiting room. As I twist and turn past 18-month olds screaming feebly and harried mothers consoling their babies, I feel like the Sesame Street song should be playing: “One of these things is not like the others, one of these things is not like the others…”
The d??cor read as if someone had come into the reception room and said, “I’m really feeling inspired by these gray walls. I’ll just take these hokey prints I found at Marshall’s and slather them like barbeque sauce on ribs, all over the place! What a great vibe!”
Gray armchairs were lined up in a row, straight and structured. Magazines splayed on wooden tables included titles from Good Housekeeping to Highlights for Kids to Redbook. There was a painting of a bouquet of flowers, offsetting the beige walls with vomit-yellow daffodils. There was a disgusting plastic tree and a faux Pollock, though I feel quite sure that the splatter painting was actually done by one of the sick children.
I walk over to the receptionist. “Yessss?” she asks me. Her fake blond hair matches the color of the daffodil print, and her glasses are pushed up above her forehead. “And who are you here for?” she demands, looking past me irritably to see if she can spot a drooling infant who appears to be my offspring.
“Actually, I have an appointment for myself.”
“Umm… oh?” she says. “Fill out these forms. Dr. Bennet will be right with you.”
At this point, I’m starting to worry about the upcoming physical. I must weigh far more than any of Dr. Bennet’s other patients. Granted, they are six months old, but still … this doesn’t help my self-esteem. Plus, what with all the beer, ice cream, saturated fat, cheese fries with double ketchup, steak and cheese subs, pizza, vodka, whiskey, rum and Everclear I’ve ingested in college, I am now living proof that the “freshman fifteen” is no urban legend. My cholesterol, blood pressure and body in general are in shambles.
Plus, they might take blood this time. I don’t like the way they take blood now. The new way that they do it is by poking a hole in the tippy-top of your finger and squeezing out the blood, one torturous drop at a time. I prefer the in and out, stick it in the vein and grab it back out again method. As much as I am looking forward to the Hello Kitty band-aid and lollipop that will be my reward for being a very brave and grown-up girl, the fainting that will most likely precede the attainment of these treasures is certainly not worth it.
I am working myself up in a major way. My breathing is getting faster. I look at one of the fish in the adjacent tank, and I swear he laughs at me. “Ha ha, you have a physical exam with a pediatrician, and all I have to do is swim!” That bastard. A mother with flyaway hair sits down next to me, stroking her screaming baby on the head a little bit harder than could be classified as a “love-pat.” This is chaos, this is hectic, this is fake trees and ugly walls and crying babies.
It’s just too much. I stand up.
“I have to go!” I announce to no one in particular. Then I drop my clipboard on its gray chair and run out of the room. The physical will have to wait, for I have just decided???I’m too old to have a pediatrician.
