Paco's Wasting Your Time: Musings of the Mediocre

Ever wonder what happens when you have virtually nothing to say but oodles of time in which to say it? Yup, I'm wasting your time.

10.11.2006

A Round of Clap

DISCLAIMER:

There's nothing funny about sexually transmitted diseases.

Well…

Maybe it's just me—rather, I hope for your sake that it's just me—but, I think STD's should have more intimidating names. For example, if a herpe carried the same grievous import as, say, a rabie, perhaps I wouldn't giggle so at the idea that wrestlers get herpes on their faces from infected mats.

(I'll refer you to the disclaimer.)

It's unfortunate that Hepatitis sounds like a tool used to complete one's math homework. Until I was old enough to realize I'd been stupid my whole life, I thought someone with Human Papillomavirus was just scared of butterflies. And, wrong as I know that I am, Syphilis sounds (and I don't know why) like a cocktail. I know, I know… but don't you think that a "Syphilis Drop" would be kinda tart with a sugary aftertaste? In any event, too many of those in a night and you'll be feeling pretty sore(s) in the morning.

Chlamydia and Gonorrhea are the only diseases that have the right idea. I imagine Chlamydia and Gonorrhea ravaging villages along the countryside until, at long last, George Puffbottom rides in and valiantly slays them. He's later rewarded with canonization and the great personal satisfaction of knowing that history would forget his last name. I've also had a recurring dream in which Chlamydia and Gonorrhea battle Godzilla over Tokyo.

Usually, Godzilla wins.

The CDC should give some serious thought to renaming some of the more common venereal diseases and launch an ad campaign as if they were brand new diseases. I would certainly reconsider the "amiable," young, "lady" I met at Takes All Kinds night if I had a danger of picking up a case of the broken-glassitis. And who, I ask, wouldn't be embarrassed to tell their parents they'd contracted robbed-at-knife-pointhea? Absolutely nobody (no matter how tough a guy you think you are) wants to find out after a wild night in Tijuana that you have to be treated for sit-next-to-the-arab-guy-on-the-airplaneginosis.

Like I said… nothing funny about STD's.

In fact, I find them so very not funny that I'm actually mortified by the idea of them. I've often weighed the option of whether I'd prefer to look through a catalogue of pictures of people with various STD's or attempt to pet an angry dog.

Irrational. I know.

When I was in college, I had an all too brief experience with a friendly girl whose reputation preceded her.

And what a reputation it was!

A couple days later, neuroses took the better of me and I started having what could only be described as a "funny feeling."

"No, no!" I thought, "This is impossible. I'd invested in the best condoms money could buy. I did research. Surely, the only preventative measure I could have taken—short of becoming an OB-GYN and only engaging in acts my mother would scorn while in my OB-GYN office amidst my OB-GYN tools—was wrap the wee-wee in saran wrap AND aluminum foil prior to slipping on aforementioned best-condom-money-could-buy."

The week went on… and I felt sleazier. Finally, I took the long, shameful walk down to my school's clinic. The problem, I feel, that most clinics have is that they ask you a lot of embarrassing questions in front of other patients. Questions like: name, contact number and symptoms.

Were it up to me, they'd call your number, usher you through dark hallways into a room, give you one of those surgical masks and proceed with the examination. They didn't, of course, so I did my best to explain to the girl checking me in, as quietly and ambiguously as I could, what I assessed to be the problem. By the third time she said, "Sir, I can't hear you," I was convinced the whole waiting room had diagnosed me. These were no longer college students with their colds, iPods and backpacks. Oh no, they became doctors with their degrees, stethoscopes and beepers. Worse still, these were judgmental doctors with their degrees, stethoscopes and beepers.

The young clerk, noting my discomfort, called over a senior, portly, matronly nurse. Now, rather than having to tell the cute girl at the coffee shop or that sat next to me in physics, I'd have to tell my Aunt Martha that I had an itchies in the hmmmmm…. Hmmmmmmmm.

You know… a mild discomfort in the old hhhheeeehhhh… cough… heheheeeeeehhh.

"Okay, nurse, I'm concerned about the feeling I now have, that I've never had before down in the…

…you know, the…

…my…

…Hoo-bah…" (Not that I was a pre-med or anything)

I discovered Jesus the moment she understood without asking me anymore questions. She told the clerk that she'd go ahead and handle my case, then asked me to take a seat. No eye contact (or thoughts of eye contact) was made with the kids with runny noses and achy joints. They didn't know problems like I did. Their stupid ailments could be solved with orange juice and ice packs. Mine were treated with healthy doses of shame.

The doctor came out and registered through the files. There may have been five or six kids in the waiting room with me and, at this point, I was the last in line.

"Who's Ramirez?"

Fuck.

To this day, I haven't figured out what makes an adult think that hiding behind a magazine makes you invisible. The nurse sold me out and the doctor was immediately breathing angrily above me.

"Are you Mr. Ramirez?" Questions. Always with the questions. I coughed out an affirmative response and slid my eyes just above the Teen People I was "reading." What came next was the stuff that frivolous blogs are made of. He grilled me on why I'd shown up without an appointment on a Friday night shortly before closing. While I weighed my options, I noticed that the doctor resembled a bear in a white coat. I later found out he'd played football in college and, in the meantime, his hands made the clipboard look like an index card.

"Well… I… ummm…" This is the standard response when what you really mean is "Listen _______ (Doctor, Officer, Dad, Your Honor, etc), we both know the answer is because I'm an idiot." More often then not, authority figures will accept the response and go directly into their pedantic diatribe about how irresponsible I am. And I kinda appreciate that. Dr. Bearhands didn't.

"Well… I… ummm… Mr. Ramirez, that simply won't do. Please explain to me what made you think," he looked at my file, "a mild irritation like yours would simply go away? Don't you think that's a little irresponsible?" He was really an amazing doctor; at that very moment when I knew everyone in the room (medical professional or otherwise) was looking at me, my mild irritation was totally gone. I'd been cured without having to take off my pants!

I stumbled around words that sounded nothing like, "because I didn't think anyone would be here on a Friday night to hear me say that I thought I had the clap." He did that doctor sigh—the one when they know you're not going to listen to them—and instructed me to come back first thing the next morning. I set the magazine down on the chair closest to the front door.

Having gotten very little sleep (I won't get into details, but let's just say, Godzilla didn't win that particular night), I rolled in the next morning to a very cheerful staff. Everybody seemed to know me and seemed very happy to see me… except the new girl that checked me in. She seemed not to have heard of the proverbial prostate exam Bearhands had administered the night before.

"Your name, sir?"

Hell.

"Do you have an appointment, Mr. Ramirez?"

"Uhhh… Yeah. I think I do. The doctor from last night told me to come in as soon as you opened."

"Good, good. You are marked down for 7 o'clock. Good. What seems to be the problem?"

You're kidding. Why would it be that the only time in my entire life I had to visit a doctor for an embarrassing medical condition, the only people asking what my problem was were cute girls? Why can't I get those same odds on airplanes with row buddies?

Happily, the pudgy nurse from the night before jumped in to instruct the girl to write "groin pain." Of course! Why I didn't think of that myself, I'm not sure. I could have gotten a groin pain from playing football or a construction accident. As long as it wasn't someone that knew me, it'd be totally believable that I was playing a sport or whatever. That happens, right? People believe that wrestlers get herpes from infected mats, after all.

I sat in the room and the doctor came in somehow larger than he was the night before. He was unnervingly pleasant and asked me how my week went, if I had caught the ball game the previous night, why I thought I had a venereal disease… I considered lying, but then gave brief thought to why it is people lie to doctors as if they cared (except dentist, they really get poopy when you actually admit that you don't floss. They can probably tell, but I think they'd rather be lied to).

"See, doctor, I'm not sure I actually have anything. I think I just feel guilty and the guilt knows exactly where to manifest."

Kinda like the Catholic Church…. Hey-oh!

He listened kindly as I explained to him, in my medical opinion, why I couldn't possibly have anything. He only took a couple notes before he said, "All right, I'm going to need you to take off your pants."

Doctor, if I hadn't heard that before, I wouldn't need to be in your office… my smirk seemed to say. The procedure was a simple one; he'd have to take a urethral sample with a small cotton swab. All this sounds fine until you figure out what "urethral sample" means. I pulled my pants down, he kneeled in front on me, I laced my fingers behind my head (because it seemed natural and I'm not clear on precisely what you're supposed to do with your hands when a doctor is kneeling in front of you with your pants off… pockets are certainly out of the question). He administered the sample with his huge, cold hands while I yelped, trembled violently and, yes, cried a little. When he finished, I collapsed onto the examination table and made a deal with God never to have sex again in my life as long as I never had to feel that particular pain.

"I've seen a lot of boys take this test before and I go pheasant hunting every year, Mr. Ramirez, but if I may say so, I've never heard that sound before." I actually thought, at that very moment, that I would forever be incapable of finding anything funny. Yeah, it was that kind of pain. Or I thought it was until he handed me a plastic cup and asked for a urine sample. Now it was that kind of pain.

Taking the test in and of itself convinced me that I had something awful. Something they'd have to name. Something people would have to have drives, walks and ribbons for. People would have my name on their t-shirts and rather than "Go" (like I've always dreamed of) it would say "Defeat." I'd die and my parents would be in parades.

Seven days later, I arrived at the clinic broken and pitiful. This time the check-in clerk was a guy covered in tattoos, which under any other circumstances would have been nowhere near as comforting as he was right then. "What can I help you with, bro?"

"I'm here for some test results."

"Oh, yeah? What kind of test results?"

"…from tests I took last week." They'd never learn. I'd taken the pains to write my full name, date of birth and Social Security Number on a scrap of paper in the event that I was asked in front of people again… or… you know, hit by a bus.

"So what was it, like a clap test or something?" By this point, I was convinced that everyone in the waiting room could smell syphilis-laced crabs on me already. Go ahead, bro; say it louder.

"Looks like you're clean, man."

I KNEW IT!! God, I hope you won't hold me to empty promises I made in a moment of weakness.

Click, click, tap, tap, tap. "Oh… wait…" My world crashed down around me; you remember when Bambi made it out of the forest and looked back expecting his mom, but she'd been shot? Anyway, that was me.

"Wait? What wait? Don't wait me, man. I already waited a week to hear you say I'm clean. Don't take that back, man. My parents don't even want to be in these parades!"

"What? Nah, bro, you're still clean, but like I wasn't supposed to tell you… so like act real happy and shit when the doctor tells you." I did and acted amused at Bearhands' jokes about being more careful and my penis is not a toy (I wish I was kidding).

It would be another couple years before I took another clap test. This time I did it out of a sense of responsibility, rather than obligation. I'm an adult, I said to myself, I should go annually as a responsible, sexually active American. And this weird thing under my tongue is starting to freak me out.

Learning from previous mistakes, I made an appointment over the phone and gladly gave all my particulars to the faceless receptionist. I showed up, gave them my name and got promptly ushered off to my own, more secluded part of the medical center. No more mass waiting rooms for me. No, sir; you asthmatics and ear-aching commoners could keep it! I was being walked, no, escorted to the one room in the building that had only two kinds of patients: pregnant women and guys who thought they had herpes.

Yup! Just me, a bunch of pregnant ladies and a gloriously large pile of magazines. A woman called my name, walked me into an office and asked me a series of questions (none of which involved my thoughts on being walked everywhere). It's okay, it's okay. I'm a mature, professional adult. Surely, I could describe to another professional (particularly one who has probably seen 40 guys like me this week) why I wanted another test.

"No problem." Which I understood as "I'll go get a doctor who has more personal experience with wee-wees."

When she returned with the Cotton Swab of Doom, she asked if I'd feel comfortable with a female proctoring my test (so to speak). Sure, that sounds professional, but what she really meant was "Are you going to be a Sally about this or are you going to take your poke like a big, brave boy?"

I'm a mature adult now.
I'm a mature adult now.
I'm a mature adult now.

"No, I suppose that won't be a problem."

Things I didn't know BEFORE my second test:
1) Having experienced serious pain doesn't toughen you for the next round.

2) To this day, I'll never be able to aptly represent with our alphabet nor replicate the noise I made the second time.

3)I think the same applies to rectal exams, but you always assume other people in the hospital know. I mean, getting your reflexes tested at the knee doesn't make you want to take a shower.

4)The most awkward possible cigarette break you could ever take is with the woman who, minutes earlier, watched you "need a minute" before you could put your pants back on.

5)You don't actually need an STD test for an allergic reaction to curry.

DISCLAIMER:

The term "sexually active" (with respect to the author) is to be interpreted loosely. More conventional interpretations are equally as inaccurate as statements like "the author only masturbates sparingly" and "reality show stars are actually celebrities."