this is where no one is actually surprised at all

The only legitimate defense I have here is that I paid absolutely no attention to the words "Annual Physical" on my appointment notice. I thought it would be a blood pressure/breathing/how's your thyroid doing these days (slowly degrading past the point of having any kind of functionality in my body other than decorative, thanks for asking) kind of thing.

This all changed when the nurse put little cloth covers on the stirrups of the medical bed (pink) and a fresh sheet on it while I stared in incomprehension and then laid out a fresh sheet and gown and told me to put the ties in the back. You would think--anyone sane would know--that this is the point I should have gotten with the program as I slipped on the gown, wrestled with the missing ties (what the hell is up with that, why do I always get one with a broken tie?) and saronged my sheet of choice over unshaven legs while still clinging to my underwear in a state of what at this point must be considered truly epic denial.

( yeah, I don't know either; tw for things that involve stirrups and not horses )

After which I got dressed and considered the possibility that I really need to read the notices. As it turns out, it's mentioned on there! Who knew I should read past the time and date?

I know what you're thinking--this has been a learning experience. I want to remind you that I am still amazed by the coming of my period and currently my phone is set to alert me that I'm going to want to listen to my "cut your wrists" playlist and stare into the backyard pondering the meaningless of life and file truly sarcastic defects at work. Sometimes while thinking I could have been an astronaut (I'm claustrophobic) and why I fail at knitting as a life skill (I stab myself with the needles; it's weird). I've learned nothing. Check back here June 2014, and you'll see what I mean.

Final Note: You may not think this, but in general, if my doctor had chosen to Surprise!Pap me instead of stating it very clearly in unambiguous terms on the appointment notice, I wouldn't blame him. Historically--and he knows this--anything more than a blood pressure/breathing/how's your thyroid doing these days (it's being a lazy fucker, we're not speaking right now, thanks for asking) kind of thing results in the blank, staring silence that makes the entire situation feel about as comfortable as an autopsy, requiring him to fill the silence, hearkening back to the days that we all stared in bafflement at my lung x-rays after those two bouts of atypical pneumonia when he said "It's just interesting, how the ones now (April) are identical to the ones from November! Your hospital-requiring bouts of pneumonia are weird, you know? No idea why this is happening." because he's a doctor and this is what they like to talk about. Generally, it's much better to set me off into a monologue on the relative merits of Ohio.

(Similar to the specialists who during the second bout came into my room while I was gripping an oxygen mask before breakfast to crowd around my bed and say excitedly "It's not cancer! Or Legionaires! But we have a ton of possibilities to go! We need to bioposy your lungs!" and ten minutes later I remember to ask the space where they'd been standing "Wait, cancer?" because again, the blank staring silence thing is apparently desperately uncomfortable.)

I live life like a box of chocolates without fingernail marks on their bottom to check contents before consumption. Why don't I fingernail mark them and find out if this is a lemon or a caramel? Like the love of God, it passeth all understanding.