{"id":14066,"date":"2019-11-28T16:44:39","date_gmt":"2019-11-29T00:44:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/?p=14066"},"modified":"2019-11-28T16:44:39","modified_gmt":"2019-11-29T00:44:39","slug":"thanksgiving-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/thanksgiving-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Thanksgiving"},"content":{"rendered":"

I went to get a pelvic ultrasound test for my latest round of hypochondria. The radiologist was a small Asian woman with a dour demeanor. “My name Tran,” she said resentfully.<\/p>\n

We started a test with the thingy on my belly, which reminded me of the ultrasound tests you get when you’re pregnant. It was a nice feeling. I asked Tran, “Do you have kids?” and she said, “No kids. Not enough money for kid.”<\/p>\n

Uh-oh. Now I felt sad. Here I am, a middle class white women who could afford two kids, and this poor immigrant is servicing me, so to speak, on a crappy income, unable to live the life she deserves, that everyone deserves.<\/p>\n

“Yeah,” I said stupidly, “They are expensive!” “What are you doing tomorrow [Thanksgiving]? I asked next, hoping to cheer her up with conversation. “Sleep,” she answered tersely.<\/p>\n

Oh god, okay. So I said, “Oh, I love to sleep too! It’s my favorite thing in the world!” She brightened up a little.<\/p>\n

Next, I had to get undressed and she stuck the thingy up inside me. With my legs in stirrups, and the internal “discomfort”, I remembered the feeling of giving birth, the agony and the ecstasy, and it was shockingly visceral. I wanted to give birth with all my might!<\/p>\n

But then it really started to get uncomfortable and I said OW. I asked her if she saw anything awful and she reminded me that she wasn’t allowed to say anything.<\/p>\n

She stayed in the room while I got dressed and I asked her in a sympathetic tone when she could go home. It was around 4. She said 4:30. I said, “Oh good! It’s coming right up!” She told me I was the last patient of the day. Then she told me that it was the last day of her job.<\/p>\n

Shit! Had she been fired? Or was she just moving on? I asked her what her plan was and she said she didn’t know. “But I am healthy, I have brain, I can do work!” she said plaintively. “I not going to kill myself!” she exclaimed, as though meaning the opposite.<\/p>\n

Fuck! What was going on, I wondered, my brain whirling. “Of course, of course, you can get any job!” I told her. “You didn’t like working here?” I asked her. She looked down as she straightened things up. “They don’t like me. They not happy with me. Say I am mean to patients.”<\/p>\n

Well, she was kind of mean, but that no longer mattered. I told her that she could start a new life, she was just 40 years old, not too old to have a family or do whatever she wanted. I told her about all the places I’d worked where no one appreciated me, about the time I called my boss a cunt and got fired, the fact that I could not work with people looking over my shoulder and telling me what to do. She listened intently. She asked a few questions.<\/p>\n

Now she was smiling a little while we talked about our mutual dislike of cooking on holidays. I thanked her and said it was nice meeting her, and added, “Hopefully, I won’t die from a gigantic uterine tumor the size of a cantaloupe!”<\/p>\n

She smiled and said, “You have nothing to worry about.”<\/p>\n

One thing I’m good at is tricking the radiologists into telling me what they saw. You don’t get to be my age for nothing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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