The Mammogram

Turning 40 is not without its pratfalls. Couple the constant vigil to slather every inch of my skin with SPF 250 to prevent being cast as a "Warrior Extra" in "The Mummy Returns" with the horrible realization that cheesecake is fleeting...but cellulite lives forever, and it becomes obvious how ill-prepared I was to enter my twilight years.

With the new quadruple assault on the decades behind me, I was also hit with the realization that my body could just up and quit at any time. And has threatened to during many exercise regimes. So, enter the "Preventative Health Phase".

Yes, I know that regular check ups are important....and doing the yearly "woman things" at the doctor's office is a fact of life.....but is it really necessary to try and mimic childbirth from the waist up to remind us that we're too old now for anyone to care what our girls look like?

Not knowing what to expect, I piled myself into the car...sans deodorant as per the info sheet my doctor gave me....and prepared to look some x-ray technician in the eye and pretend he/she wasn't man-handling my boobs.

Arriving at the hospital, I instantly knew where the mammogram department was by watching the hordes of women running for the parking lot clutching their chests and begging for ice packs. Not one to be easily intimidated, I looked the receptionist square in the eye and said, "I'm Colleen Hawley and I'm here for an x-ray of my foot".

Cursing the hospital policy that gives the receptionist access to what the doctor ordered, I sulk around back and wait for my turn in the masher. Ignoring the yelping of the woman ahead of me, I convince myself that they couldn't possibly be filming a slasher movie in there and bravely take my johnny shirt and psych myself up for game day.

Entering the room to meet the technician who will be my tour guide to old-womanhood, I stop and swoon at what I'm seeing. Imagine if Brad Pitt and George Clooney were blended in to one man...with the physique of Mr. Universe.....and the hair of a Greek God....and you have the perfect man to help someone as shy as me get through this rite of passage. I feel like I'm in a dream state as he gently puts his hand under my chin, expecting him to remark something like "My God, you're magnificent!".....only to have him push my mouth closed and mutter "You're drooling on my lab coat".

Painfully aware of how many children I breastfed...and how many times I went bra-less doing housework...I curse the cruelty of the earth's gravitational field and follow Mr. Perfect to his contraption. Passing me two metal BB pellets, he instructs me to tape them to my nipples while he warms up the machine that will know me in ways only my husband did after our fourth date.

Giggling as I coyly give him the "This is not a date" joke, I'm instantly shut up as he shoves me chest-first into a plastic vice that was surely invented by some one-eyed sociopath who locked himself in a laboratory with a three-headed assistant for a hundred years. Gauging the severity of my whiplash injury, I'm hardly aware that Mr. Perfect has grabbed one of my girls and laid it on an ice cold slab of some material that must have been pirated from Area 57.

Giving me his generic "This won't hurt" spiel as he dives for cover behind a lead wall, I notice that something is happening....the walls are closing in! Escape is futile as those metal BB pellets seem to be attracted to the magnets in the MRI lab next door, and I'm cemented to the masher. Still trying to maintain some composure and appear like a voluptuous-if-not-aging dignitary, I break out in a sweat that would shame a lava flow as my boob is compressed into a diamond...but I do not cry out...I do not show fear....I do not BELIEVE that I wasn't allowed to wear deodorant!

Hearing Mr. Perfect rounding the corner again, I try to fan and dry my upper body with my good arm and put on a "That didn't hurt a bit, you silly" kind of face. Watching Mr. Perfect grimace and smear menthol under his nose, I switch instead to Plan B...beg for morphine or a nerve block.

The relief I felt as the masher surrendered its death grip on me was instantly replaced with the awful realization that God gave me two boobs. Sensing my intent to bolt for the parking lot and beg for an ice-pack, Mr. Perfect whipped out a magnet and cemented me to the masher again. Bracing for the pending alteration in my cellular carbon, I pray that Mr. Perfect reaches the age where he'll need a prostate exam real soon.

Not caring anymore that I smell like a dead goat's ass, or that my hair resembles Phyllis Diller in her drinking days, I use the scoop provided by Mr. Perfect to scrape my boobs off the masher and rearrange them into a bra that will never fit right again.

Giving me his most professional "Now that wasn't so bad, was it?" smile, I ask for my clothes with a voice usually reserved for frightening ghosts away and actually enjoy his startled expression as he realizes I'm calculating my odds with a jury of my peers.

Throwing my clothes back on, I ignore his "But Mrs. Hawley"s and storm out of the room and head for the parking lot to stick my chest into a snowbank. Marching by the MRI lab, I instantly regret not waiting for his final instructions as the machine whirs to life and drags me to the door by the BB pellets that I neglected to remove before storming out.

Ripping the tape that was surely originally marketed to keep the space arm attached to the latest Nassau shuttle, I am pleasantly surprised by the amount of Gaelic curse words I remember from my high school days. Throwing Mr. Perfect one more "Get a Colonoscopy" look, I abandon my quest to find one last shred of dignity as I stagger to the parking lot.

Can't wait to turn 50........