Where's Dr. House when you need him?

I did not haul my heiner up at 6 a.m. to write this morning, but I was still up at the crack of retardation to go get an MRI. (Apparently that's what we do in our 30's - frantically floss and get MRI's.)

Let me just say, radiology facilities need to spend a little less time nagging about insurance authorizations and a little more time on their magazine selection. RADIOLOGY TODAY? CUSTOMER INTERACTION SOLUTIONS? I almost fell for a WEB MD with Hugh Laurie on the cover until I realized he wasn't actually featured in the magazine. (Who knew WEB MD even had a magazine? And who the hell reads it?) Instead I entertained myself by listening to the reactions of the people waiting for CT scans, upon hearing how many glasses of liquid they were expected to consume without urinating ("HOW MANY?", "Five.", "FIVE?", "Five.") and being grateful that I wasn't one of them. I was all set; I was even prepared for the I.V. which is pretty amazing, considering my needle thing. (FYI - heart surgery at a young age can make one a little squirrelly about injections.) Still, I was good to go - until I got to one particular question.

"Is there any possibility that you might be pregnant?"

See, that's a tricky one. I mean, any woman of child-bearing age in a monogamous, non-prophalactic-using relationship who has sexual intercourse mid-month has the possibility of being pregnant. "IS THERE ANY POSSIBILITY THAT YOU MIGHT BE PREGNANT" is pretty freaking broad. I mean, yes, sure, there's a possibility that I might be pregnant. There's also a possibility that I might go parasailing someday. I decided to ask the woman behind the counter what she would do in this situation.

"When did you last have sex? Hmm. And when did you ovulate? Hmm. Uh... Hmm."

I decided to ask the lab technician. After all, she probably dealt with this kind of question every day.

"Oh wow. Well, we usually tell our ladies to go around the corner and pick up a..." (vague hand gesture indicating either pregnancy test or magic wand) Unfortunately for me, the tech on duty wasn't exactly Oprah in a lab coat. More like Joe Theisman in scrubs. Somehow I doubted he'd fully comprehend my very, very specific injection-giving instructions.

"Well a pregnancy test wouldn't actually show anything yet because..." I yammered, going on about the intricacies of the female anatomy.

Theisman stared at me with barely disguised bewilderment, like I was lifting the veil of feminine mystique right before his very eyes.

"Yeeeah, I think I'm going to need a supervisor on this."

Theisman returned a few minutes later, trailed by a portly, Huxtable-esque doctor.

"Yes, ma'am? Seeing as how this isn't a life-or-death test, we're going to need you to reschedule it until after you get..." Dr. Huxtable trailed off, clearly incapable of saying the word "period". I was starting to worry about the state of men in the medical profession.

So yes friends, I get to do this all over again, once I get my... you know.

This time I'll bring my own magazines.