Ride the Snake

Today is Tuesday, and I look at my cell phone to see it is 5:45pm. I have an appointment at 6:00pm to get an MRI for my knee. My keys are in my hand and I am literally on my way out the door when I feel some pressure. My body has decided it is time to poop, and I am not one to argue. I have friends who can complete said task in five minutes. I am not one of my friends.

At 6:05pm I have my keys in my hand and I am out the door. I am late.

I have never visited this medical office before, and it is located in a part of town I do not know. I know how to get there, more or less, but the sun is setting. Since my sonar skills pale in comparison to that of a bat, or even Stevie Wonder, I usually have some difficulty finding unfamiliar locations in the dark.

Every major intersection is complete with backlit street signs that give the street names and relative information including geographical direction and address numbers. This is a really nice feature, but it is completely useless to me. This is the time of day when you turn on your headlights because it is dark, but they do nothing to illuminate the road. It is too dark to read the signs, but the backlights have yet to fire.

Shit.

Eventually the lights inside the street signs flicker on to show that I overshot my destination. I hang a right in an attempt to loop around for another pass. My swallow-like navigation skills weave me deep into a concrete forest, and I am lost … again.

Shit.

After spending more than 20 minutes exploring the labyrinth that is a modern Phoenix housing development, I finally find myself on a main road. I pull into the first parking lot I can find. It is now 7:15pm as I call the medical center and tell the receptionist what has happened. She laughs at me. I ask her if she wants to reschedule, and she informs me that I can still be seen if I arrive within the next 15 minutes. She leads me to the front of the building and I park my car. I am now more than tardy.

I barely made it. The receptionist is able to squeeze me in last place, but I won’t get my test results tonight. The radiologist has already gone home, but I don’t really care at this point. The local doctors keep losing my referral papers, so I’m just happy that the ball is now finally rolling. I can wait until morning.

There is one other person in the waiting room, and she seems like a total bitch. I didn’t say a single word to this girl, but I occasionally catch her giving me that bitch stare. She’ll look me up and down, and then make a face like she just smelled something atrocious. That’s not fair. I didn’t even fart.

I step outside to have a smoke and I return to see that the boyfriend of Madam Cranky-Puss has emerged from the examination corridor. I wanted to talk to the receptionist about something, but my attention is now diverted. Attractive girls being bitchy have an uncanny ability to distract me.

All her boyfriend is trying to do is make sure his paperwork is in order and that he has no outstanding balance. She is pouting and throwing the same kind of fit as a toddler with no patience. The question I wanted to ask the receptionist has now officially been erased from my memory.

I reclaim my seat in an uncomfortable chair, and reach into my pocket to find that my holstered maraca has been silenced. As I attempt to funnel my Tic Tacs back into their case, I look at the television to see a police cruiser run over a pedestrian. Ok.

Apparently, somewhere in Canada, a man brandishing 10 knives was refusing to cooperate with the local police. So, instead of tasing him, they decided to hit him with a car. That works, I guess.

My name is called, and I follow the technician down the examination corridor. He leads me to a set of lockers and instructs me to leave my personal belongings. For those of you who don’t know, MRI stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Basically, they put you into a huge electromagnet and take pictures. This magnet is extremely powerful and if you have shrapnel from a war, or any other internal piece of metal, the magnet can rip it out of your body. It tends to be a good idea to empty your pockets. You can imagine the technicians surprise when I chose to simply remove my pants.

Since moving into my new apartment, I have been unpacking very slowly. I do this so that everything can find its natural place and I don’t have things strewn about my house. I would much rather have stacks of boxes than piles of shit. Because of this, I still have yet to find what I have done with all my clean underwear. I have only been able to locate two pairs which I wash and wear for special occasions. All other times … I free-ball. Ain’t life grand?

The pair I chose to wear to my MRI is a phenomenon unto itself. I don’t know why, but whenever I wear this particular pair I swing like a pendulum. I have never been able to recreate this effect any other way. Naked … free-balling … different underwear … it doesn’t matter. I also have never been able to buy another pair, because I believe the company no longer exists. I have owned this pair for more than four years and it is now riddled with holes. I call it my “big dick underwear,” and it is naturally my favorite pair. Seriously.

Since my BDUs are boxer-briefs and extend to just above my knees, the technician relaxes and leads me past an empty secondary waiting area to the machine. I am lucky that the body part being addressed is my knee, because my shoulders are far too broad to fit into this thing. My last MRI was back in New York. That one was for my shoulder, and I had to wait for the “open air” machine to come into town. This time, they stick my knee in a stabilizer and thread me into the machine. My ribcage barely fits into this thing. I now understand what it was like to be born, except that my mother isn’t nearly as white as the machine and I truly hope she was much softer.

The technician informs me that I must remain completely still, because they will have to start over if I move. I don’t think that will be a problem.

The technician wakes me and informs me that the exam has ended. He delivers me from the canal and I rise to my feet, sluggish. I ask him a few lethargic questions, then exit the exam room.

I stagger into the secondary waiting area to find a young child and his mother, seated. The child is staring at me with mouth open and eyes wide. He has the same look of shock as a deer thrust into the midnight path of a truck. Confused, I look at the mother. Her eyes meet mine, and she turns to inspect her son. As she follows the path of his eyes, the same shocked expression washes over her face. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I follow the paths of their eyes to see that my dangler is clearly exposed through one of the larger holes in my underpants. Not knowing what to do, I smile and turn to the mother.

“How you doin’?”

Getting no response from her, I quickly shuffle off to reclaim my pants. I bid the receptionist farewell and retreat to my car. I think tonight might be a good time to unpack my clothing.