Do you know what I love about mammograms?
Neither do I, but I’m open to suggestions. Because my current feelings on the procedure are unaffectionate.
My friends refer to mammograms as “the boob mash” and “getting squished.” The annual exam falls into that category of medical must-dos — along with Pap smears and dental cleanings — that we work hard to avoid thinking about. Before, after, and even during the dreaded appointment, we simply banish all thoughts of it from our minds — a disciplined-if-desperate meditation on anything at all but the bootie-wearing stranger unceremoniously kneading our chesticles.
But during my recent exam, several especially awkward moments yanked me right out of my blissful bubble of denial, forcing me to confront the full-frontal affront of this fondle-and-flatten ritual.
There’s something overly cutesy about my mammogram office. Like a pediatric dentist’s, compensating with giant grins and happy hues for the misery they’re about to cause you, the receptionists here are unreasonably jaunty, the décor unseasonably pink.