Gotta Collect 'Em All!

I spent the rest of the weekend amused about my impending doctor's visit. Monday morning comes and I call the number to the lab/clinic.  The receptionist is right to the point.

"It's $135 and we don't take American Express," she quickly tells me.

Um...ok. I make the appointment for Thursday and get the necessary codes to bill my insurance company.  I'm about to hang up when a question crosses my mind.

"Um, I'll be going over there on my lunch break from work.  Will there be a long wait or anything like that?"

"No, sir.  You'll come in, give us $135, you'll collect, and you're free to go!"

I had to stop myself from chucking like a twelve-year-old at "collect."

Next comes the anxiety:

First off, how much am I supposed to collect exactly?  What if I'm handed some gigantic nine million gallon jug or something?

Furthermore, my time there depends on my collection time.  So, how long is long enough?  I mean, should I just waltz in there, collect, and then BAM! I'm out the door?  Will I be judged?  No, it's probably better that I take a little while, but how long is long enough?  Twenty minutes?  Thirty?

And $135?! I have to PAY someone to do this?!

My wife asks me if I will be ok with all this and I laugh and tell her I got this one.  No prob, babe.  I can handle it. I also think that, despite my first time with the doc, she's had the worst of the experiences.  I just have to collect.

Thursday comes and I head on in to the office.  I have to fill out more paperwork and give them their well-earned $135.  I actually do end up waiting a bit before I'm escorted back.

Now if old, crappy sitcoms have taught me anything, I'm expecting some cold examination room stocked to the gills with porn.  But what I'm led to is more like a glorified bathroom.  On first inspection, I see no porn whatsoever.  Not that I'm looking for porn so I can have some crazy pornapolooza or anything.  It's just what you always hear about this kind of thing.

Anyway, this nurse gives me more paperwork and a small cup wrapped in plastic.  She tells me to write my last name on the side and when I go, to leave the cup on the counter and ring a doorbell that is inside the room, signalling them I have left.

She leaves and I have a seat and finish the paperwork.  I leave to door wide open and start to wonder if I should go ahead and close it.  Full disclosure: it takes me a minute to realize that I should write my name on the side of the cup BEFORE I collect.

I shut the door and that's when I pay attention to a magazine rack that is on the wall.  I didn't give it much thought coming in, as magazines in a doctor's office are Good Housekeeping, Time, and Texas Monthly issues from the last decade.  But these titles are different:

Curiosity gets the best of me and I wonder how recent these are.  I pull a few up to glance at the publication date on the covers.  These are new issues for this month and the last.  My mind starts to wander.  Who goes into the bookstore and picks up the new porn?  Dr. K?  A nurse?   Or do they have a subscription which I guess would be the wiser financial move?

Then I look down and see this:

More things race through my mind. VHS?!  I'm not expecting Blu-Ray on a 72 inch HD plasma surround sound 3-D or anything, but has anyone heard of DVD?  You have current magazines, but VHS tapes from the eighties?   How about a little quality control here?  Even more creepy is this:

I can't even form a theory about why there's a picture book of Scottish golf courses.  Men are sick.

In addition, even if I wanted to, I didn't see a TV with one of those antique VCR's anywhere.  Then I notice this:

Turns out they call this stuff "the kit."  My brain must have been in full stress mode.

Well, to make a long, gross story shorter, time passes and I leave.  But when I leave and for the rest of the day I feel awkward and out-of-place.  All my joking leading up to the appointment has vanished.  Now I'm left with a bad feeling I just can't shake.