Compulsively thinking...about my butt!

(The back half of the paper upon which I wrote this blog...as you can tell, I used pretty much every useable spot.)

I am the last of a dying breed. I do something which no one seems to do much of anymore: I talk.

I am good at it - the only other thing I am great at is worrying - and if I could get paid for doing it all those times I've done it, it would make Oprah, Bill Gates, and Zuckerberg look like paupers in comparison.

But back to my talking. I do it instinctively...I do it obsessively...dare I say, I do it compulsively? Well, I did and I do (and thereby fulfilling today's idiotic prompt).

Take today for instance...I'm back at the gastroenterologist for my "butt appointment". I fear the worst - I hope for the best...what I'll get only time will tell. I'm sitting here in the examination room with that embossed tissue paper wrap "garment" they give you to wear (it's a large square - one size fits all...heaven knows it goes around me twice and that means most people in Alabama won't be able to make both ends meet). Underneath it, I am naked from my shirt down.

I have another thing I do which I rank up there with a whole lot of other obsessive compulsive stuff I do...I always pull that "barrier wrap" paper down a little - the one they put over the examination table - I have no real idea why...it makes me feel safer.

You must realize that someone else's naked butt was just on that table and the only thing separating me from the previous patient's "cooties" is this paper, thinner than air mail paper if I remember correctly. In other words, very thin...if you look hard enough you can see the germs permeating it I bet...but I refuse to look. Sometimes I even fold it back over on itself - a double layer of germ protection...this I usually do at the gynecologist. Again, why? Anyone's guess.

I'm also not looking forward to having my butt examined. Not that I have issues with doctors looking "down there" - I just don't want to hear I need surgery.

I can hear him with the patient in the next room over (muffled - but it's his distinct voice - he has an accent and this is what his voice sounds when it's muffled...and it's also what it sounds like thru the exceedingly annoying tinnitus I have in my head...but it's him for sure).

Today, since I haven't told you yet -- is "hemorrhoid banding day". Friday mornings, every other week is reserved for that purpose only.

Only last Saturday nite, I had a "butt explosion". I apparently made the mistake of not eating enough dietary fiber and ended up "straining". Needless to say, that resulted in my bottom looking like any female chimpanzee in estrus you've ever had the shocking pleasure of seeing on those wildlife documentaries. Fearing "death by rectum" or some other such malady, I promptly went to the Emergency Room.

You can tell something isn't right when the ER doctor doesn't poke you. She stood behind me (well, she had to in this case) and just looked. She might have gently touched...but there was definitely no poke involved. I think she was afraid. Heaven help me, the ER doctor lady was afraid to touch my butt, I just know it. She didn't say she was - but I could tell. There are some things you don't do in life: You don't poke a glowing green meteorite from outer space with a stick...you don't go down into the basement in a horror film...and you don't touch Mariann's butt in the Emergency Room at 2:00 a.m.

It's getting quiet "next door". I think I might be next. It's 10:22. I've been here since 8:15 for my 8:30 appointment...which brings me back around to talking.

I had another captive audience in the waiting room again - and I took advantage of it again. I spoke with a lovely 72-year-old woman whose mother died in 1999 at the age of 98; her father made it all the way to 101. She didn't look a day over 59...and, altho she was here on "Butt Day Friday", she might have been here to see another doctor. I'll never know now -- as that darned nurse-type person interrupted our conversation by calling her away.

But all was okay - two unsuspecting victims walked in by the time she went totally thru the door. "Replacement talkers" as I refer to them...and they, too, were both lovely people.

And I just ran out of useable paper space...and the doctor's here.

(Seriously, I ran completely out of useable paper space just exactly when I wrote "...I just ran out of paper..." and just exactly then...the doctor came in. I couldn't have timed that any better if I wanted.)

The aftermath...and the math:

I got my third banding today...and I was pretty much right with my butt...but, I won't go into detail. He assures me, somewhat, that if I stick to his diet and eat more fruit - I can heal up...but I have to eat all those fruits. If I don't, he figured we might have to talk surgery. Ugh. No fun. No fun at all. I will try to eat those fruity things I am not partial to eating. I like vegetables much better anyway. But I do like staying out of surgery even more.

Please go over to "We Work for Cheese" for much better blog subject matter today...using today's prompt "compulsively".

In case you thought there was an excessive amount of the words "but" and "butt" - you were right - I used them 18 times in this story. Well, counting those two...I used them an even twenty. :)