What If This Were A Penis?…

Poor, pitiful teensy breast smushed between a metal plate and the plastic thingy that follows the chest wall making the squash more effective. Hold your breath. A thought: What would happen if this were a penis?

“Stand up straight please. Move a bit closer to the machine. Just a bit closer. Ooh, closer still. Rest your arm here. I’m just going to place your penis on the plate.” Lift, maneuver, plop. “Let’s get these balls out of the way. Can’t have those in the picture. Now I need you to stand very still as the plate lowers down over the top. Take a breath. You’ll feel a squish. Hold your breath. Now we turn the machine to get a side view.”

Can’t imagine such treatment of the precious penis? But to boob manipulation, mushing and cold nipples we give little thought. Let’s not even discuss speculums.

It’s annual mammogram day. I’m already irritated. They’re running an hour behind. An hour. If I were an hour behind, wouldn’t I have to notify someone? There’s plenty of time to peruse the ladies, and the breasts, filling the waiting room. I’ve read all the Us and People‘s scattered about. Time is the only mag not read. I want real news–housewives, gossip and the magical marriage of Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively. Important stuff. Certainly not information that may change the trajectory of US relations across the world. Pfft.

Examining the faces surrounding me, I spy a young woman checking her watch. Who’s watching her children as she whiles away the hours en route to boob smash. Another women breaks the rules, tucking a phone in the pocket of her fashion gown. She loudly alerts all of us she’s still twiddling her thumbs awaiting her turn. She’ll be home asap. The woman across from me rests her head against the wall, eyes closed.

As for breasts, mine are the tiniest in the crowd. I coddle myself inwardly that they’re still pert–the advantage of little bitty ones. Once they’re flopped with ease through the machinery even that delusion is crushed. The lady with the phone has an overlarge low-hanging set. I give them the voice of an old man singing a hymn with his eyes closed tight. A blond, of course, cruises by. There’s no way they’re real. No one stands at that level at attention sans bra in nature. I peer downward. Is that pity?

It strikes me funny that even here, in the boob examination safe space, they’re still ogled. I can’t be the only one. We’ve all been sitting here over an hour and we’ve got bosoms on the brain in that off chance we’re the one in four, non?

My turn. I stand half naked with another chick whipping my breast around. I feel for her. My bitsiness makes manipulation difficult. Even at full squish they don’t make for an overlarge image. She has to reshoot. And reshoot again. Must have been a tiny girl that created the hour long wait.