I Don't Like Doctors. Which is a Shame, as I'd Quite Like to Marry One.

I don’t often get ill and there are very few occasions on which I would drag my medium-sized bum off the sofa and to the doctors. In fact, I can only recount three memorable instances when I had to visit the doctor, and I believe these may explain why I avoid them.

The first reason I would visit the Doctors, which turns out to be a regular occurrence, is to get a repeat prescription for my inhaler and the contraceptive pill – because when you use an inhaler, you have to put out on the first date to get a second. Now, nothing unspeakably horrible has ever happened to me whilst picking up a prescription, but the bombardment of questions such as, ‘“Do you do much exercise?” – no. “When was the last time you had sex?” – a year ago. “Have you got a boyfriend?” – no. “Are you aware that being on the pill can cause you to have a stroke or become infertile?” – what?!’ are, frankly, a little demoralising and the sorts of things that I’d rather repress, in order to discover the horrifying truths of my life at a later date when I’m at home with family and not right now, in a room that smells like gloves and has a hairy old man talking about my sex life in it.

The second instance was when I went to ask the doctor for a boob job on the NHS. Now, I have never liked my breasts. It took me three years of having regular sex before I would agree to let my long-term boyfriend take off my bra. I remember one day when I was about 15 and my mother walked into my room when I was getting dressed; she saw my breasts and started laughing. Needless to say, I am uncomfortable with them and decided that they were causing me enough psychological damage that the NHS would surely agree to fix them for me. Now, it is important to note at this point that the size of them wasn’t really a factor, or anything I had ever thought much about, it was simply that they didn’t look like a porn-stars perfect pair. So, I arrived at the doctors, hyperventilating over the fact that some one was going to see my breasts, and gingerly agreed to remove my bra and hop up on the examination table. The doctor bent over and peered at them for long enough that I nearly started crying, before exclaiming, “Yes, one is a lot bigger than the other, isn’t it?”

IS IT?!!!

She promised to do some research and get back in contact with me when she had some answers, which she never did, consequently leaving me with odd-shaped, odd-sized breasts and a rather nervous disposition.

My third encounter was a pleasant and highly amusing one until a small woman tried to insert her fist into my vagina.

I was, on that occasion, visiting the local STI clinic, in order to be a responsible young member of the community and an inspiration to the disease-riddled sector of the population. So there I was, minding my own business, when a mother and her young son walk in and sit across from me in the waiting room. The mother is continually yelling at her son not to put his fingers in his mouth after having touched anything in that waiting room and, whilst I’m usually opposed to hyper-obsessive mothers determined to keep their children 100% germ free, all I could think as his little fingers reached for his tongue was, “Syphilis, syphilis, syphilis, syphilis, syphilis.” The toddler, fed up of his mother’s chastising, climbs down from his seat and rounds the corner to the children’s play area – an area which can be clearly viewed from my vantage point, but from his mother’s is invisible – and plonks himself down in front of one of those infamous tables with the wire loops that you push beads along. The ones that surgery waiting rooms are so fond of.

The child has seen me watching him and is clearly aware that I know he’s not to put his fingers in his mouth, but he fancies himself a little game. So, as if to challenge me, he slowly places both hands on either end of the wire, never taking his eyes off mine – it’s like a scene from a western, everything but our eyes should be in shadow and they should be twitching and scowling, challenging one another to draw. Then, very slowly, and with utmost precision, he raises his head, sticks out his little pink, germ-free tongue, and slowly drags it along the length of the wire, loops and all.

When he’s done, he sighs like an old man with a cold beer and smacks his lips. I look away, ashamed at losing and, frankly, a little disgusted.

Just then a nurse calls me into the examination room and the little boy sadly watches me leave, as if I will never return.

After that delightful examination, I vow I never will.