Apologies to any nice doctors reading this. I have had some positive experiences with medical professionals, but the negative ones are hard to forget. Like when I went in for my yearly physical in Minnesota last summer, and asked to have S.T.I. tests done. The nurse practitioner asked, “Which one?”  I was like, “Um, all of them? I haven’t been tested in like a million years. I would like to know that I’m healthy.” And she was like, “Oh…okay. I guess.” She made feel like a slut and a hypochondriac at the same time.

Or during my first year of college, when my mom and I picked up my very own diaphragm at the pharmacy, and the woman working there looked at my mother like she was pure evil, and I was her sex-crazed spawn. (It’s not just me who notices this stuff, mom noticed it immediately too.)

A month or so ago, I wasn’t feeling well, so I finally decided to go to Hampshire’s Health Services. The woman at the desk looked at me like, “Oh, it’s a girl.” She said I’d have to fill out a form if I hadn’t been in recently, and I was like, “It’s been awhile.” She looked up my file, and realized I hadn’t been there since my first year, when I thought I had mono. That was the only other time I had ever gone to Hampshire Health Services.  Suddenly she was like, “Oh!” and took me seriously, because she figured if I come in so rarely, then I must not just be a hypochondriac/slut. I was like, YES I WILL FILL OUT THAT FORM THANK YOU.

Since I’m on the topic of women’s health, I should mention that Lucy Knisley recently did a fantastic comic about the various (shitty) birth control options for women.

As a totally unrelated PS, I must mention that HARVEY FUCKING PEKAR is speaking at Modern Myths in Northampton tonight.  Thus, tonight that is where I will be!