This I Believe

I believe that going to the gynecologist is hella awkward. So awkward, in fact, I had to use outdated non-regional slang just to get my point across. It’s as awkward as me using “hella” in our dope blog.

Even with the coolest, hippest, most easy-going lady doctor in the world, I get really insecure.  I shower twice before my appointment, I dab perfume on my abdomen, and I avoid "having fun" for a few days prior, because who knows if she can tell?

Once, I forgot to shave my legs and walking into her office I almost cancelled my appointment. Vanity thy name is Sarah.

There’s also the humiliation of the sex interview while I’m wearing a paper dress.

“Are you having sex?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t need a prescription for birth control?”
“Nope.”

With certain things, I like to maintain a bit of intrigue, and there’s just no mystery in that relationship. It’s a little heartbreaking.

Plus, the waiting room is full of women who are chubby and pregnant and toting kids around. I’m not jealous, I don’t want a baby, but as soon as they see my un-ringed left hand, these bitches look at me like I walked in wearing jelly sandals, and a tube top with “Slut” emblazoned across the boobs. It’s a real ‘down the nose, raised eyebrows’ look. Gee wiz, how dare I be in my early twenties and concerned about the health of my uterus? It’s only a major organ, but I suppose I’m just a big whore for even acknowledging I have a vagina right?

sigh.

As rough as it is to walk through my gyno’s door and become a blaringly non-mysterious tart; I have a slight inkling herpes and cancer would be somewhat more troubling...

As the fear-mongering news reporters were all too delighted to shout from their digital rooftops, slightly more than one in four American girls (14-19) is infected with an STD. Now, I don’t particularly enjoy using public restrooms, but like most, I often find myself in a situation where I have to. I’m not germo-phobic, but it would be just my luck if some Hannah Montana, anal-doesn’t-count tween leaves her HPV on a toilet seat for me.

Not fun. And while a pap smear isn’t a day at the movies, it also isn’t death from cervical cancer, or a certain mood killer when someday I want to have meaningless sex with a stranger. 

So while I believe that going to the gynecologist is just shy of a truly traumatic experience, I will go and be prodded and scraped. Because I also believe that my health, my life, is more important than my fears.

NPR's instantly classic essay series This I Believe

Costco: a Reflection

I always get really amped about going to Costco.

It's kinda fun. You get to show your ID to the guy at the front of the store, like you're going into a sexy nightclub or you work for a company that has a website. Then you get a to push around a giant oversized cart. It makes you feel like a little kid playing with a shopping cart at the grocery store, and you get very tempted to get a running start and ride it. But you really can't get away with that, since there's people everywhere (except in that one aisle where they sell things you'll never buy, like catapults and artificial rice substitute. Yes, they are in the same aisle).

Then you fill your cart with the groceries you'd usually buy at the grocery store, except you buy three times as many. I almost bought twenty pounds of potatoes, but then I remembered I wasn't a serf.

You can also buy CD's and DVD's, but the prices are surprisingly high. In fact, most of the time, Costco prices are among the highest anywhere for media.

There's no punchline to that. Costco's DVD prices are terrible.

And the food court! You can buy delicacies such as a crust filled with parts of a chicken. And I think they sell 2 or 3 other things too.

The best part is the checkout, because you get to see what other people bought and make assumptions about them based on their purchases. For example, the man in front of me was buying a case of Tecate, a box of 1000 latex gloves, and a 3 gallon tub of mayonnaise. He was obviously on his way to either the best party of his life, or the worst.

Then again, I was buying vodka and pens. What does that say about me? Probably that I'm a writer with a substance abuse problem, or as they call me in the industry, a "writer."

So in a way, Costco is a fun place to visit a few times a year, like Disneyland. But it's also confusing, money-draining, and there are lots of fat people standing in lines, like Disneyland. But the good news is, you leave without a sunburn.