I took Friday off so I could go to a WHOLE NEW MEDICAL FACILITY to get my LIVER ULTRASOUND! It was a BANNER DAY! They put out a REAL BANNER, and it flapped GAILY IN THE WIND! It said "SKOT'S BIG LIVER DAY! BRING ONIONS!"

When I got to the waiting room to . . . wait, I was confronted with one of those "take a number" little displays, complete with little plastic numbered tabs. Hanh? Take a number? I hope I come out of this with either some corned beef or a new driver's license, I thought.

After my "intake interview," which sounded wonderfully ominous, but wasn't, someone showed up more or less instantly to escort me to my room, which was moodily lit in a Blade Runner-ish way. Maybe I was going to get fucked by Daryl Hannah! Or killed by Roy Batty!

Or, more likely, an unremarkable tech was going to slather my thorax with surprisingly warm goo and then jam a little robo-phallus into my ribs for about forty minutes, which is somewhere in between. "It's kind of like a formula warmer," said Pat, my tech, of said warm goo, apropos of not much.

I asked Pat if she was allowed to let me know if she saw anything worth screaming about on my scan, and she stuttered. "I, I--I only take pictures. Doctor Marx will take a look and let you know what he sees. My job is to take the best pictures I can." There was silence for a moment. "No," she said in a small voice.

"It's cool," I said. "I'm a pain in the ass," I explained further.

"We're going to look at your pancreas and gall bladder too," she said in reply. She gouged me again, and I didn't say anything.

"I never think about my gall bladder," I said, witlessly. "That's good," she cooed. You're a pain in the ass, I assume she thought.

Our porny adventure continued on for a while, complete with sentences like, "Let's roll you over so we can get a side view." Also: "Oh, don't worry, I see pubic hair all the time."

BOM CHICKA WOW

After a while of this, she gave me a towel to wipe up all the goo, which, really, if I'm wiping up goo? It would have been nice to have a decent reason for. In this case, I was just goo-covered for unpleasant reasons. Wiping up sticky residue should always be after an orgasm, frankly. But I was neither motivated nor confident in my ability to talk my way into a handjob at this point anyway. I glumly toweled off my fish-white gut.

Presently the terrifying Dr. Marx was escorted in. Here's a rough approximation of what he said, in utter machine-gun cadence:

"I have looked at your films and I do not see scary things like cancer or robots or dog faces [I actually have no idea what he said at this point, so I'm filling in] and I will talk to your doctor about this but there are maybe some fatty deposits but you can have a good day."

He stood stoically after that while I processed that whole bit.

"I . . . that sounds like good news!" I stammered.

"You have a good day!" he yelled again. Then he left.

I stared at the tech. "He's very . . . succinct," I said. "He sure is!" replied the goo-tech. Then she showed me out.

Good Lord, fuck all this. I'm happy to live with my neuropathic silliness if I don't have to confront any more terrifying Politburo doctors.

I have trouble eating soup, for God's sake. None of this is worth it. YOU HEAR ME, SOUP? YOU DON'T FREAK ME OUT.

I have watched Viva Laughlin. I will not be intimidated by soup.

Next entry: Viva Laughlin. It was like soup, only one thousand maniacs came in it. Also, it's cancelled. Yay!

Next entry: Holy fucking hell, did anyone else see Viva Laughlin?