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Doctor, doctor, test me the news

I recently received a letter suggesting my health insurance sucks and I should change to a I WILL KISS YOUR BOO BOO plan instead and, to entice me, the office would include a free prostate massage.

I considered it simply because when I hear the word massage, I am "IN BABY" even if it's from a stranger with a gold tooth wearing lots of gold necklaces and driving a pink Cadillac convertible.

Another invitation came from a company covering a yearly pregnancy test at no charge. That was tempting, just for the laughs. My grandkids would find it funny as well, but the company did not include any other services that amused me.

I had been only vaguely considering what the newest various options provided since I was frustrated by my own physician whose only specialty is Recommendology. His nurse, who does more than he does, takes my blood pressure and temperature, then weighs me (after I remove my nail polish and mascara) to get an accurate number. My doc doesn't actually do much examining. He calls everything a virus, which is Latin for "I don't know what the hell you have." His method is to check his computer for the most trending disease on Twitter and then recommend a colleague from his own distant country of origin to treat it. I think a commission is involved.

Still, I manage to generally stay healthy; well, except for the fall, which gave me an opportunity to pick up items on the floor that I dropped months ago. Life works out well, don't you think? Oh wait; there was the incident of the headache that led to that bruised elbow. One A.M. after an extremely festive evening, my head ached. I reached for an aspirin and couldn't open the childproof jar even after pressing down and aligning the arrow as the teeny tiny minuscule directions suggested. I fumed and twisted and then accidentally banged my arm against the sink. Luckily, my granddaughter came by after kindergarten, opened the bottle, and then texted (80 words per minute!) to research the nearest emergency room and she sent me on my way.

The room was mobbed, so I took a number - 72 to be exact, which gave me time to observe the crowd. One woman saw her medical form menu of choices of a specialist for each symptom and mumbled "allergies, heart, ear, nose, gums?and then she sang, "All of Me. Why Not Take All of Me?" We all sympathized and hummed along.

One man sitting right next to me, who evidently had been waiting for a very long time, called the receptionist at the desk in our very room and asked to speak to the urologist. She said, "Please hold." He shouted expletives and said if he could hold, he wouldn't be in the emergency room!

Frankly, I am becoming fed up with my current medical programs. I think I will return to the psychic who said I would meet a tall dark strangerwho would remove my gall bladder. I hope he, the gall bladder remover or any man, is aware of my strict personal dating rules, which by now my pals on this site are aware of but I will reiterate. I never ever allow, as followers are well aware of, a gent MD or otherwise to shave my back until the third date. Well, usually anyway.

To your good health!

- Jan Marshall

Jan Marshall is an author of humor and healing books, a humor consultant and newspaper columnist.

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