Not Fit to Bend Over

This morning I canceled my annual physical. The reason: I was feeling the weight of another barbecue weekend.

I hate showing up at my doctor’s office unfit for duty. It makes me feel he has one up on me, as he peers over his glasses and stares me down.

“You’re putting on a little weight, Mr. McDonough,” he said to me at my last physical.

“And your cholesterol levels are covered in chocolate and cheese sauce.”

My doctor has a sense of humor. I laughed, but not in any light-hearted sense.

“Blood pressure’s up a bit, as well,” he said.

“How’s your alcohol consumption?”

“I still drink a little on the weekends,” I said.

“How little?”

“Oh, nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Yes?”

“A couple of drinks a night.”

“Oh?”

“Maybe a few.”

“I see.”

“Six to eight.”

“Really?”

“Eight to ten.”

“Hmm.”

“All right! An even dozen!. But that’s my final answer!”

He shook his head and closed the chart.

“You’re a mess,” he said. “I want you to close your eyes and imagine you’re standing in front of a full length mirror. I want you to then take a good look at yourself. Now tell me if that’s the man you imagined you’d be when you were a boy.”

Closing my eyes and imagining somebody naked is something I’m pretty good at. I’m suspecting its pretty universal. But in my own head I’m not seeing the fifty-eight year old man sitting on the examining table trying to suppress a Guinness fart. I’m seeing a twenty two year old. Happy and slim. Not a care in the world. Ready to try the world on for size. Then I open my eyes and look down. When I don’t see my penis, I close my eyes again and sigh.

“You’re right,” I said. “I am a mess. But this time I’m really going to knuckle down and get fit."

“I hope so," he said, as he scribbled out prescriptions for cholesterol and blood pressure medication. “For your sake."

As I left the doctor’s office I felt confident that during my next physical I would astound the doctor with my new physique.

He’d rub his eyes in mock surprise and say, “What happened to the rest of you?”

But that didn’t happen. It’s been a year since my last physical and nothing’s changed. But maybe I pay too much attention to other people’s notion of what I’m supposed to look like. I know I’m happy being me. It’s only when someone brings my waistline into question that I start feeling less than human. But the feeling passes and before you know it I’ve devoured an entire sleeve of chocolate chip cookies and life is good again.

So, bon appétit! And pass me a cold one!