No, I really mean it;

Am I the only one who thinks Carl Williams looks remarkably like Ralph Wiggum from The Simpsons?

Just try and deny it.

One down...

So, as most of us do, I have a list of things I absolutely should and need to do. They're those things that you're possibly not fond of, don't have time for, or just plain slip your mind.

On my list for some time has been a full skin check for melanoma/cancer. Wife of one, mother of two, casual working woman = not a lot of spare time; you know the drill... But... My beautiful friend Ellie recently had a bit of a run in with the scalpel and very kindly reminded me of just how important these things are.

Fast forward to today, Fathership and I are booked together because I have issues with being locked in a strange room, alone with a strange man. It's just one of my creep out triggers. I decide to go first because I am very brave and so skulk in wearing my little undies and a bra covered with a wraparound towel. Well, a fat lot of good the towel did me; it was ripped off almost immediately. And as if I didn't feel vulnerable enough, the bloke eyeballing me through a massive magnifying glass with fluorescent light attached didn't do much to lower my blood pressure either.

Oh, did I mention that he started with my head? I'm sitting on the edge of the bed while he stands before me, scratching and mussing my hair about like a fucking chimpanzee! The ol' latex gloves didn't feel too flash either with their rubberness catching all my strands. He was a really lovely doctor and chatted away to me nicely throughout, explaining that skin cancers don't necessarily need sun exposure to form and that (quote) they can pop up anywhere, even where the sun don't shine. What I didn't expect was for him to fucking check there!!! Wow, so right about then, I start praying, I want it over, I will be good forever, please please please. Fuck knows who I was praying to since none of them have ever listened before but I tells ye, I was willing to take a punt.

I was thinking positive, though (as they tell me to) and figured that that would be as bad as it could ever get. I was mostly right. He stumbled across something on my arse that needed attention and so got his special looking glass out and investigated even more closely! So I'm lying there, prone, while a perfect stranger puts his eye to a glass thing on my left cheek like it's a fucking diamond - but best of all (and this is me thinking positive again) was that by then, I didn't give a flying fig when he dug about in my boosies, crotch and armpits for lymph nodes - meh, big deal.

The good news is, nothing he saw concerned him enough to do anything besides send me a reminder letter for another shot next year. Hey, by that time we'll be old mates and maybe I'll feel less violated. The chances aren't great though.

The other good news is that if I can handle that sort of treatment and come out ok, the pap test I've been remiss about will seem like a walk in the park. Another check for another day.