It's All Right If You Don't

According to the New York City rock and rock and roll radio let's go, today is National Bologna Day, while tomorrow is the immensely popular Punk For a Day Day, which fortunately comes with a side of eyestrain, so you know what all the shouting's about. Yes, it may turn out we were all just in a bad mood for a few years, with safety pins. So old age won't bring many surprises. Thus, it is fitting that I have an appointment with my gynecologist.

"Ta darling," you're saying, "That was an odd segue. I feel vaguely uncomfortable, like a million voices cried out and were silent - nearly enough to make me reconsider my breakfast combo."

You'll live to dine again. Among the things bugging me today are that I need to get a mammogram, and that my insurance company requires women to get prescriptions for mammograms. My insurance company assures women that preventive care is good care. Get a mammogram! Everyone should have one! Take two, they're small! So...why the prescription? Send me a pushy postcard once a year from one of those resorts only insurance company CEOs can afford.

Having a lovely time. Wish you were here! - I kid, because I love! Princess, make an appointment for the old smashy filmy. It's cost effective for me!

So why the permission slip from the gynecologist? Are breasts a controlled substance? Have I been wielding them without a license all this time? Scheduling unpleasant tests willynilly? The doctor assured me years ago that one day, mammograms will go the way of the dodo, replaced in the balance sheet ecosystem by MRIs when their costs come down. The MRI makes sense to me because you hold still and a technician takes very detailed pictures of your innards. I have had my extremely photogenic innards photographed, if you will, in this way and it was completely painless. I enjoyed the complete painlessness of the test, and would like to enjoy it annually, but if I have to have a half-assed and unpleasant test every year, can I just get it and get it over with without the insurance company both pushing and pulling? That's too much to ask? Baloney!