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Frumpy Mom: Fun at the doctor’s office

June 28, 2023

You may be shocked to hear this, but I really hate going to the doctor.

Yes, yes, I could write an entire encyclopedia on this subject, and so could you, but I’ll try to limit it to the tiny space that my cruel, uncaring editors give me each week.

The first test of your patience, of course, is sitting in the waiting room. Nowadays, there’s usually someone sniffling or coughing near you without wearing a mask. When you offer them a mask, they look at you like you’d just proffered a live grenade.

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

Then there’s the person sitting across from you, underneath the sign that says, “Please take your cellphone conversation outside.” And of course, she’s talking on her cellphone. Loudly. If you’re lucky, she’s not using her speaker, but you never know.

I really, really do not want to hear about your third cousin Vera’s gynecological problems. I don’t even want to hear about my own gynecological problems.

When people force me to listen to their conversations in a waiting room or a jacuzzi or anywhere else, I always feel free to join in.

I lean in close and say, “Did Cousin Vera try the new lubricant cream? I heard that works very well.”

Whenever I do this, the blabbermouth on the phone always looks at me, shocked, and sometimes says, “How rude!” As if I’m the one who’s being obnoxious. This is my favorite moment. My attitude is: If you are forcing me to listen to your private phone call, I feel I have the right to chime in. I just give them a great big Cheshire Cat smile.

I’m not kidding. I actually do this. And if everyone did it, maybe rude people would go outside more often. I mean, seriously. Why do you have to talk on the phone in the doctor’s office? Or the line at Target? Or my kid’s school concert? It can’t wait a few minutes?

But I digress. Once the medical professionals have finally called your name and admitted you to the Inner Sanctum, the sadomasochistic rituals start. For starters, they put you on the scale and weigh you.

This is nearly always depressing, because you know you can’t cheat that fancy schmancy industrial strength device, and you don’t want to strip naked in front of the entire office staff to push the numbers down.

Well, it’s depressing for me, because the scale nearly always says that I’m fatter. Maybe if it said, “Marla! What the bleep! Stop eating all that ice cream!” that I’d be humiliated and motivated to change.

Nowadays, they don’t show your weight in pounds, but in kilos. This momentarily gives you the impression that you just dropped half your body weight, but it’s a vicious lie because a kilo is equivalent to 2.2 pounds. I don’t really know why my doctors felt the need to use these kilo measurements.

I mean, hello. We are in the U.S. of A. Not in one of those misguided countries where they use the metric system. I can’t figure out Centigrade and I can’t figure out kilos and I don’t want to learn. I really don’t want to get on the stupid scale at all, but if you are going to make me, I want to get depressed seeing my weight in good old American measurements.

After the scale torture, then of course the nurse makes you sit down to take your blood pressure. I’m one of those people whose pressure soars in the doctor’s office, so they always end up making me stand and raise my arm and then do an Irish jig to make it go down.

I always feel vaguely guilty like I’ve been caught doing something naughty when the reading is too high, even though I know it’s temporary.

Recently, though, things have changed. I’ve been doing guided meditations for health every day for the last four years and, as a result, I can make my blood pressure go down at will. Seriously. I can.

I just sit there and say to myself, “Blood pressure, go down. Blood pressure, go down.” And it actually does. This makes me feel like an Indian yogi who can also levitate and stand on his head (except I can’t). I don’t know why it happens, but I’m glad.

Then, of course, you have to go into the cold little room full of potential torture devices and put on the backless paper gown. I’d like to see a beauty contest where they make all the contestants design a party dress out of one of these paper gowns.

So you sit there awkwardly on the adjustable table thing with butcher paper on it, while you wait for the doctor.

This was always the hardest part when I took my kids to see their pediatrician because they are squirmy and have no patience whatsoever. I always prayed the doctor would come quickly, before the kids made forts out of the tongue depressors and ripped one of the many machines out of the wall. I’d hiss, “Sit down! Be quiet! Put that down!” none of which did a lick of good.

Their blood pressure was fine, but mine was off the charts.

Luckily, these days the kids are old enough to go to the doctor on their own, so I only have to worry about myself.

Eventually, the doctor will come in and ask you what the problem is, even though 2.5 nurses have already asked you that question.

Whatever it is, she will invariably hand you a prescription at the end and tell you to get it filled on your way out. Because pills are the way our medical system works today.

So much fun. Let’s celebrate with a tongue depressor.

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Orange County Register