Ok first off I would like to thank MILK for writing about the time I self diagnosed my own appendicitis when I was in the 5th grade and causing these horrible repressed memories to come racing back.

I’m pretty sure the doctor who kept misdiagnosising me got fired because mom threatened to sue the hospital so I got a new pediatrician. Lets just say this guy had a certain way with kids.

After I had been right about the appendicitis my mom believed everything I could come up with disease wise to get out of school. I had become Ferris Bueller, only the problem was I hadn’t seen Ferris Bueller so I missed his faking sick lecture where if you over do it, you end up at the doctor’s office which is bad.

I have never been a fan of school, basically every review of my academic life has been summed up with “well he’s very smart, but he doesn’t apply himself”. If you ask me, why work hard when you can coast on cleverness? We’re all going to die anyway and as the Snipers say “run and you’ll only die tired”. Anyway so I would try to get out of class as often as possible.

I began to scour the Dr. Hippie book for diseases that were serious enough to warrant staying home from school, but not so ridiculous that no one would believe me or think that I was seconds away from turning into a zombie and shoot me in the head.

The problem was just when I had mom in the palm of my hand and was ready to send her off to work so I could have a morning of game shows and Combat reruns on our tiny television she would make a doctor’s appointment. She was a little paranoid that I would need surgery again so she was taking no chances. I should have given her a cooling off period I now realize.

Ferris Bueller was right… don’t over do it.

So we would get in the car and go to the doctor’s office, which presented a delicate situation for me because I would have to do my song and dance for a much more discerning audience. I would go into the room pitch my case, and I shit you not the guy would stick his finger in my ass. Temperature, how are you feeling, say ah, drop you pants and here’s your lollypop you’re fine.

Salmonella from my pet turtle… Finger in the ass.

Listeria from some brie… Finger in the ass.

Whatever the hell else I cooked up… Finger in the ass.

I gave up. What’s weird is I’m pretty sure I mentioned this phenomena to my mom and she didn’t think it odd, or maybe I didn’t mention it thinking it was normal exam stuff. Either way she would go to work and drop my recently violated ass off at school, and after a while mom would actually take my temperature before determining if I got a pass. Of course I could still plead for a mental health day.

Back at school I would be very quiet the rest of the day. “Whiskey, quit squirming in your chair” the teacher would admonish me.

To this day I don’t know if he was getting some kind of sexual thrill out of it, or it was some weird old school doctor way of discouraging hypochondria. If it was the former…gross, if it was the latter it sure as hell worked. The only doctor I like to get near these days is my wife or her friends at parties. I basically avoid checkups like the plague and the last time I went in without my wife nagging the hell out of me, a stingray was involved.