Yesterday, I went to the boob smashers. Boob smasher one and boob smasher two. One yanked my boobs like a champion of tug of war. The second slathered me up like a birthday cake decorator.
Boob smasher one was in charge of the hardcore smashing. She was like one of those old-school bread bakers who could squeeze the flour out of a baked loaf. She treated my boobs like she was kneading the world's toughest bread.
I prefer no-knead bread. I suggested she put my boobs in the fridge, cover them with saran wrap, and let them sit for four hours instead of pounding the shit out of them? No? Okay, then yank and crush away.
The last time I had the standard mammo, my left foot was cramped for a week afterwards. To strategically place my boobs where I was being directed to, I went full ballerina and did some real arch damage.
Boob smasher two was in charge of the dense breast mammo, which is an evolution of the first mammo and more accurate. She was a younger chatty lady who was obsessed with radiology and mammograms.
She told me how old mammos used to be cone shaped. In the late 60s, they would have laid me sidewise and stuck my boob in a pyramid that resembled a parking cone.
I imagine, from a certain angle, a woman getting her boobs mammo’d in the 60s, looked like she was serving her boobs up in an ice cream cone. But, upside down.
Boob smasher two gave me a long lecture on the importance of boob health, which felt redundant since I was already there. It was like handing a microphone to the church soloist and saying, “You should audition for the choir.”
Boob smasher two explained to me that she would be applying lotion on to my boobs with a spatula. She said, “Yep, If you ever need a cake decorated, I’m your girl.”
I guess they’d had some complaints from previous patients who claimed they weren’t birthday cakes. Now, they needed to tell the boob owner ahead of time what was going to happen to prepare her for the slathering.
Frontloading that information would ensure us that the boob slatherer was not a lost cake decorator who’d escaped the bakery and was slathering frosting on random boobs. She was a certified radiologist.
And slather she did. From my angle, lying on my back, I did feel like a cake. This went on for half an hour while a camera above snapped thousands of pictures of my boobs.
Soon, I would be spinning on the turntable so she could get all sides. But no, she was only frosting on my top. After a while, my boobs didn’t even feel like mine anymore. I wanted her to finish so I would see how the decorating had turned out.
Boob smashing. What an art form. About halfway through the second radiation machine, I thought I can’t believe men don’t have to do this every year. I tried to imagine men’s balls getting crushed first and frosted second. It wasn’t a pretty image.
I wished the breast department could double up with airport security and do a twofer. “No need for a mammo this year, you flew to Detroit.”
When I took off my clothes to shower later, I half expected to see a fully decorated birthday cake on my chest, but nothing that interesting. Just two boobs walking through life with me. Two old friends who took one for the team that day. The least I could do was wash off the frosting.