Are Those Implants?
Boob questions and other medical pop quizzes
The other day, I had to answer some pre-mamogram questions. These pre-hospital visit questions feel like pop quizzes to me. I panic, which causes me to give confusing answers.
Are you pregnant? They ask. I’m 50. Who am I? Janet Jackson?
Do you smoke? They ask. No, why? Should I? I mean, I did when I was young. It was a fun way to talk to cute musicians. I was also so skinny cause I never ate. And it made me French, n’est pas? So yeah, I miss smoking.
Do you have implants? I paused.
Do I? I wondered, tripped up. This sort of thing happens to me. What I mean is, not knowing the answer doesn’t make me think I’m having a stroke.
The world inside my head is tricky. I get QAnon. I get Fake News believers. For those of you, who can answer, “Do you have implants?” quickly, without thinking about it, you’ll never understand real conspiracy followers. Your brain isn’t a sponge for, “What if Hillary really does put hot sauce and caramelized onions babies?” Mine is.
Do you have implants? the man repeats. Then, I start to think how it’s really funny that a man is asking. Is he embarrassed to ask me about my boobs? Does he get a kick out of it? Is he imagining my boobs right now?
I’m sort of immature, as you can see. He’s a nurse. He’s a grown-up. I’m the grown-ass woman who still giggles at the word boobs. Boobs. It’s a funny word, right?
“Mam?” Oh shit, mam. He must have looked at my birthdate.
“Mam, do you have implants?”
“No,” I said, proudly filling in the last pop quiz question. “But I had to think about it for a second. Isn’t that funny?” I say to him. He doesn’t answer. Party pooper.
That’s why I hate pop quizzes. I wish they would ask you the same five questions every time you had to pre-register. That way, if I panicked, I could keep a cheat sheet by the phone, so I didn’t have to remember if my boobs were real.