This won't hurt a bit!
Lemme try and take you through the joys of a woman's annual physical - not for the faint hearted I should advise.
The annual physical are words that strike fear and embarrassment into a woman's heart. Some women deal with it by avoiding it altogether. They think if they go for a check up, their body will automatically manufacture diseases so they prefer to take the ostrich approach to medicines. Others race off to the doctor's office when they chip a nail.
I don't know a lot about the male's annual physical , well actually that's a fib... but then again 
why spoil a man's perspective to blog. I imagine they get their vitals checked. They get to aim and neatly deposit urine and sperm samples into a cup. Mind you - they too need to have their "assets" checked out no doubt - at least I'd advocate those who don't to definitely start doing so. Then they pay the bill, arrange the next annual physical and head back to work. We women also get our vitals checked - albeit a little differently.
It starts with a cup for the uine specimen. Why can't they make it a wide rimmed cup? We have to balance precariously with our hose and skirt around our ankles, careful not to sit on the seat. We've got one hand holding our blouse out of the way so that we can see - or rather estimate - whether we're going to hit that cup. The other hand is holding the cup with two fingers while we pray we don't miss.
How about the mammogram? We stand in a chilly room, stripped to the waist while a technician handles our girls. I guess we should be grateful that it is a female technician but more than once I've wondered if a male one might not be more apropos. (Something I read somewhere about this woman obsessed with air travel of recent so she could get to be frisked comes to mind!) We could then rationalise his arranging our breasts this way and that. We could forgive him for taking two freezing slabs of metal and mashing out boobs between them while cautioning us to hold still. There is no soft music or flowers, the technician calls you 'miss' and never once do you get offered a cigarette afterwards. (Not that I mind personally on this but still...!)
You head off to another room for the Marquis de Sade of all examinations...the Pap Smear. Good gracious - 'pap smear'? In this age of marketing hooks and public relations, who on earth thinks that that is an attractive name for this state sanctioned molestation? You enter the room to find a table adorned with things left over from the Spanish Inquisition. The table sits there trying to look innocent accompanied by grey, cold stirrups festively dressed in pot holders and a strategically positioned lamp. You climb aboard wishing you were someplace else - any place else - back in the mammogram room even. You lay back and wait for your doctor.
The doctor apparently believes that your examination should be on public broadcasting because she enters with a small troupe of passers-by. You're asked to put your feet into the stirrups and assume the position. You've normally reserved this position for your husband or lover but there you are, in full access mode with everything clear up to your tonsils exposed from the bottom up.
You realise that your dignity was merely compromised during the mammogram but now, you feel your dignity shrivel up as the doctor rolls up on the stool, flips on the lamp and the passers-by gather together to observe the cremation of your pride, self worth, dignity and joie de vivre.
"Please slide down further and relax your knees," the doctor says and reaches for what looks like barbeque tongs and a shoe horn.
"Relax my knees"? Is she trying to be funny?
"This will feel a bit cold." They can put a man on the moon but they cannot warm up gynaecologicaly instruments.
You lay there while the doctor examines you, pokes things into you that you suspect might be unnecessary if not illegal. The theatre crowd steadily avoid your eyes and you stare straight up to the ceiling wishing for death or aleast unconsciousness. You bemusedly wonder if your doctor actually goes home and has dinner after this.
After what seems like days, the doctor finishes mining your body, snaps off her gloves, pats your knee and says, "You can get dressed now." And the whole party troops out.
You lay there for a few minutes feeling like a two dollar hooker who got stiffed out of her two dollars. Dismay has set in like rigou mortis. You feel the lubricant the doctor used seep down your legs. You consider screaming but decide you didn't want any more attention that day.
You dress quietly after using two boxes of tissues to tidy up. As you step out into the street you feel as if the world had changed while you were in there undergoing your rite of passage as a woman. Everything is grey like the stirrups and you feel the sudden desire for a good stiff drink. You head home and call in sick for the rest of the day. You close the drapes, grab a shower and pour yourself a large glass of something strong. You lived through yet another annual physical. You know it's a good thing to do; you know you're gladto find nothing wrong with you. it makes sense to have your yearly check up what with the scares about cancer, AIDS and a host of new bacteria and viruses. You know you need to take good care and to remain always aware of your health. None of it was fun but after a few belts of booze you relax and giggle. Next year you're going to get drunk then go to your appointment. You could sell tickets.