My Confession

Bless me Father, for I have sinned.

It has been an eternity since my last confession.

I have envied, and I have not loved my neighbors as I love myself.

Yesterday, I had two appointments. One with a dentist who is going to make me an appliance to keep me from having sleep apnea. One of my co-workers asked if that meant that my tooth would get a refrigerator. I told her I hoped not.

Anyway, I went to the dentist and he talked for two solid hours, never looked at a tooth, never looked at a gum, just talked about what these appliances are about, and that re-designing one's airway can do wonders, even cure autism. I'm sure that this may be true, but it will be a deep disappointment to those who are convinced it's caused by vaccinations. He has a website if you're actually interested.

The only time he actually touched me was when he took my check. Oh, and I have another two hour appointment next Wednesday. Maybe he'll look at a tooth then. Or maybe not.

Then, in the afternoon, I had an MRI for the sciatica I have been experiencing since returning from my father's funeral. If you have never had the pleasure of an MRI, let me help you prepare yourself for it. Lay flat on your back, and have some one shove you under your bed, then ask them to begin sawing 2 x 4's with a circular saw nearby. You may not move. This will go on for at least twenty minutes.

They didn't tell me it would take twenty minutes. I figured the folks that I heard in there for twenty minutes were getting their whole bodies done, not just their lumbar spine. Oh, NO!

I laid down on the track (just like the track I laid on for a CT scan, a V/Q scan and a thallium stress test). They gave me yellow foam earplugs. I observed that the aperture of the tube was rather small. They shoved me into a tube that was about the same size as a coffin. I kept my eyes closed the entire time, because I knew if I opened them I would freak clean out. Then the noises started. Like jackhammers, and steam shovels, and all manner of noisy machine sound. I was laying with my hands clasped across my belly, and I made the mistake at one point of flexing my hands, and my knuckles grazed the top of the coffin. Finally, they stopped. I breathed easier. A voice came from behind me, "Are you okay, ma'am?'' "Yes! Are we finished?"

"No, ma'am, we have about ten more minutes."

TEN MINUTES??? TEN MINUTES IN THE BOWELS OF HELL??? WHAT DO YOU THINK I'M MADE OF????

"Okay, sweetie, we have about five minutes, then I'll talk to you again." I screamed "WAAAAAAIT!!!" but the machine sounds started again. I screamed, I cried, I sang parts of Mozart's Requiem. Nobody could hear me, so who gave a damn if I got the lyrics wrong.

"Sweetie" came back up and said I had about three more minutes, she was going as fast as she could. She was lying, I know, but at least she had the human decency to lie to me in a way that I could not verify, since she had taken my watch.

And then it was over. And the tube vomited me out, like Jonah.

Very slowly, I sat up, recovered my spectacles, and walked very slowly back to the dressing room, where I replaced my trousers, my bra and my jewelry. My precious timepiece.

I walked out to my car, and opened the passenger door to put my oxygen in the front seat. About that time, a man, older than me with a small, Asian female companion, walked out and said "You opened your door against my car." I looked at it and said, "No, it's not touching your car." He said, from twenty feet away, "I'm looking at it." I stood up and looked at him and said "No, my ass is between you and the door, so what you're looking at so intently is my ass, and if I were your lady here (gesturing grandly), I'd be wondering why you were looking so intently at my ass!"

I closed the door, walked around the car and got into the driver's seat. He stood speechless.

Lord, keep folks from messing with me after I have had an MRI.

That's all.

Amen.