Wait, pause.
Can I first direct your attention to the stock photo I’ve selected as the featured image of this post? It’s hilarious. What is she doing? I think she thinks in a crossover of Greys Anatomy and America’s Next Top Model.
Unpause.
AAHHHHHHH! That was my initial reaction on my 21st birthday. Not joy for the opportunity to be an open alcoholic but the knowledge I had to now undergo one of the last entrances to womanhood: the pap smear.
Wait, pause again! This is an “inappropriate” post (imagine air quotes because it’s more condescending) so please proceed with caution. I’m looking at you, Mom. You’ve been warned.
Unpause. Again.
First of all, why the word ‘smear’? It makes me think of a New Yorker asking for cream cheese. And I love cream cheese. I don’t love a person sticking their head between my legs for medical reasons. The reasoning is important people.
Please let me know if anyone else does this, but if a doctor asks me a question I cannot lie. I think I believe my life depends on it. Even if a doctor asked me if was currently fantasizing about what it’s like to have sex in the gynecologist stirrups I would tell them, “Yes, doctor, that is what I was thinking about. Does that help with your diagnosis?”
So when I had my first pap smear I was scared. I felt like I had to take an oath and share my testimonial with a court. Anything personal between my vagina and me was now up for grabs (literally).
It started out bad… it also was bad in the middle and towards the end. (Sounds like sex with a high school boy, amirite ladies? Oh god, I mean as a high schooler having sex with another high schooler! Like losing your virginity at 16! This is what happens around doctors. It’s like a truth-telling serum.)
Because I was cheap, young and without health insurance (still am), I went to my school’s clinic for a free women’s exam. The nurse practitioner who was to perform the exam came into the room and I immediately felt on edge.
She sounded exactly like my boyfriend’s mother. Similar mannerisms, same Boston accent. Now, there’s nothing wrong with my boyfriend’s mother! You just don’t want your boyfriend’s mother performing your first pap smear (or any of them for that matter).
“I’m with a student, do you mind if she participates today?”
This was my fear. I had a similar situation happen when I was getting birth control when I was 16. In a cramped doctors office, there was my mother, the doctor and a doctoral student all discussing my reproductive symptom. Not again.
“Well?” she said impatiently.
“Um, I’m not too comfortable with that,” I squeaked.
“She’s almost done with school,” she said exasperatedly.
“Sure…” I gave in like a pussy (with a pussy about to be smeared, freaking smeared.)
I had no idea the student was going to do the whole damn thing. The WHOLE thing, smear and all.
She came in looking hella nervous which of course made me panic. She shook my hand and sat down across from me while the nurse practitioner stood in the corner. She explained she had to ask me some routine questions. Understandable.
“What kind of sex do you have?”
I coughed, “Excuse me?”
“Vaginal, oral, anal?”
“Well, when it’s dark who knows what goes where?” I said to lighten the mood.
She stared back.
“Um, vaginal and oral.”
“So no anal?”
“Nope, no anal.”
“Seriously? You’ve never done anal?”
I didn’t know how to answer. Did she think I was lying? Did I look like someone who was on an anal rampage? Did she think I walked funny? Or was she so appalled I could be so boring in the bedroom that I wouldn’t even try anal?
We moved on and she asked me to get undressed.
“Buy me a drink first!”
Nothing, I got nothing in response to that.
When I finally got up on those stirrups the woman was sweating she was so nervous. Was it too hard to ask for her to appear mildly pleased to have the opportunity to go where few had gone before (very few ok! Enough with the jokes)? I looked back at the nurse practitioner and questioned this decision with my eyes. Are you sure you want to give this woman access down there?
To add salt to the wound, the nurse practitioner was standing behind me yelling, “Relax! Just relax”. This would be fine if she didn’t sound like my boyfriend’s mother. Remember? Do you know how traumatizing this was?
Also, I craved a bagel and smear the whole time. Dunkin’ Donuts should team up with women’s health clinics. Except it would be even more likely that my boyfriend’s mother would be there because she loves Dunkin’ Donuts. I told you she has a Boston accent, where did you think she bought her cawfee?
Soon it was over and I was left to get dressed and gather my dignity.
The student came back in to give me a form to give to the front office.
“Seriously though, you should give anal a try,” she said before closing the door.
I’m kidding she never said that but it would’ve made the whole experience totally worth it if she had. Oh well, what are you gonna do? Pap smears.