NOTE: This post was originally posted six months ago, but was pulled after a few minutes because a girlfriend at the time flipped out on me about it. My wonderful love, Kat, asked me to share it with the world as she thought the story was hilarious. So in that spirit, it is being re-published.
I seem to have a thing about the medical field. I have written about nearly every disease, procedure and treatment known to mankind over the years for some hospitals in Florida. I readily offer medical advice to friends, even though they don’t ask for it. I’ve also had a threesome, for medical reasons.
What, you say? They prescribe these? Well, not exactly. My threesome, a medical hat trick if you will, involved a doctor, nurse and dietician. I dated them all in sequence, a strange attraction to medical professionals, although I didn’t realize the pattern at the time since it’s not important to me what people do for a living.
I’m not really sure how it happened. I mean, I don’t really like to go to the doctor, so it’s hard to imagine me dating one. But that I did, and it is not, let me tell you, without trevail.
I’m not sure I ever got over the feeling that I was being examined every time we were playing doctor. I kept waiting for Doctor Girlfriend to be poking around down under and utter an unmistakable, “Uh-oh, you might want to see someone about this.”
She never did, but she did ask that I undergo a battery of tests. You know the ones. The ones you feel obligated to do once you’ve had “the talk.”
No, not that talk. This one was about sex, not marriage. Not the sex we were going to have, but the sex we had in the past, which led to that talk many couples have – the “did you bring anything with you to the party” talk.
I knew I hadn’t. I hadn’t gone through my uber-slutty period for almost 30 years and even then I was a pretty poor slut. It turns out that I was very selective, something authentic sluts apparently are nota.
As a result, I never had to have the talk before this. I knew where my penis had been all these years. I could still remember every single person I had ever had sex with. And I’m pretty sure my penis didn’t go out on the town without me, even though I’m sure it would have liked to.
But, wanting to be a responsible boyfriend, I volunteered to go to the doctor. Not Doctor Girlfriend though. I guess there’s some ethics thing that makes this a no-no. So I went to my doctor instead. O.K., I didn’t actually have a doctor so I borrowed my ex-wife’s doctor.
As I said, I don’t go to the doctor much. Maybe once every 10 years. I didn’t even know how you go about getting this battery of tests. I knew I didn’t have AIDs as I had to get tested for that to get health care insurance. But the others? I had no idea what was involved.
So I did what I thought made total sense at the time. I just dropped into the lab of my ex’s doctor to get a test. I signed in on the clipboard and waited my turn. About 20 minutes later, they called my name.
About darned time.
This is where the confusion started.
“What are you here for?” the receptionist asked.
I muttered quietly under my breath, “A test for sexually transmitted diseases.”
She looked at me quizzically, then punched in some data into her computer terminal.
“And who referred you?”
I fumbled for an answer for a moment or two, then nervously blurted out, “Um, Doctor Girlfriend.”
She looked at me deadpan. “And who is Doctor Girlfriend, exactly?” I finally used her real doctor name. “She’s my girlfriend,” I said proudly. “And she wants to make sure I don’t give her something that isn’t a Christmas present.”
That’s when the receptionist broke out in laughter. Not because of what I thought was a very well timed and appropriate joke, but because I looked like a complete idiot.
“You can’t get a lab test without a doctor’s order.
I said, “Well, my girlfriend ordered me to get this test before we can ever have sex. To me, that’s doctor’s orders.”
More laughter, but again, not for a good reason. Then she said, “just a moment” and closed the glass window. A moment or two went by, then shrills of laughter poured from behind the glass, the entire staff hearing about the total idiot standing in the waiting area, wanting to get a sex test so he could play doctor with his girlfriend.
Eventually the window opened again. The receptionist was a deep red shade, and not out of embarrassment. I’m sure that this story is still told every holiday party. “Hey,” she will say, “do you remember the Doctor Girlfriend guy who came in the lab because she wouldn’t have sex with him before he got tested? What a dumbshit!”
Then they would all snort and gaffaw before moving onto the story of the guy who had the Barbie doll stuck up his ass; a headless one at that. At least that story sounds a little more Christmasy since it has a doll in it.
I never got the test. I was so mortified by the experience that I never went to the doctor to even talk about my misguided trip to the lab first. I told Doctor Girlfriend the story and she felt so bad for me that I didn’t have to get the test. And no, I didn’t have any diseases; still don’t to this day.
But as I sat in the medical lab last week, getting some blood work done that my real doctor actually did order, the memories of that moment all came flooding back. I’m sure the lab technician at Group Health was wondering why I was laughing to myself. If only she knew the story. Then she’d have something to share this Christmas, too.
In the Emerald City, thinking about the test I never had to take, let alone pass, in Florida,
– Robb