<p>I was coaxed into getting a physical yesterday. I hadn’t planned on a physical, but the grands had setup an elaborate city in the basement and needed patients for the clinic.</p><p>I was met by a “nurse practitioner” at the front desk. She immediately asked for my insurance card. The kid’s been to the doctor a time or two.</p><p>Then I had to verify my name and address. I’ve been her grandmother for her entire life, but whatever.</p><p>She did a pre-screening asking if I had any aches or pains.</p><p>“From my head to my toes,” I said.</p><p>She laughed. I laughed, too. Say that at a real doctor’s office and you’re off to see a specialist.</p><p>She asked if I was on any medications.</p><p>“Chocolate,” I said.</p><p>With the screening completed, I was sent to see the doctor, which meant crawling between two chairs and into a makeshift tent. The doctor was wearing a white coat and had a blue plastic stethoscope dangling around her neck.</p><p>“How are your internal organs?” she asked with a straight face.</p><p>“They’re all good except when they hit the wrong notes.”</p><p>She rolled her eyes.</p><p>“Do you have dizzy spells?” she asked.</p><p>“No, not unless I stand up,” I said.</p><p>She pursed her lips and said, “I’ll take that as a yes.”</p><p>She took my blood pressure with a cuff wrapped around my wrist — it was too small for an adult arm. She said my blood pressure was 40/10. I was good with that. She scanned my forehead with a plastic thermometer and said I had no fever. Just as I was about to crawl out of the clinic, she announced I needed a shot.</p><p>That’s when a huge geodome-like contraption made of long plastic poles and colored balls began lumbering across the basement. Three of them maneuvered it to the “clinic.” The doctor busted out a side wall of the tent so she could use one of the poles.</p><p>“What’s that for?” I ask.</p><p>“Anesthesia.”</p><p>“Why do I need anesthesia?”</p><p>“Because we’re going to give you a shot.”</p><p>“Why give anesthesia when it’s not surgery and just a shot?”</p><p>She pressed the end of a pole against my arm and said, “Well, if we give you anesthesia then we won’t have to listen to you scream when we give you the shot.”</p><p>When I checked out, they said I owed $300. I didn’t mind, considering I’d found $500 in play money on the floor by the cardboard grocery store. It was the only time I’ve ever been to a doctor and left with more money than I came with.</p><p>Later that night, I asked the husband if he got a physical.</p><p>He said yes, they asked him to fall on the stairs on his way down to the basement clinic and break his leg so they’d have something to treat.</p><p>There’s something to be said for knowing what the doctor plans on doing before the appointment.</p><p>We may have found our new primary care physician.</p>
