Today I had an appointment with a throat specialist - precise details not important. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before, but doctors and hospitals terrify me, and waiting rooms terrify me even more. This particular one was basically the living room in an old Viennese apartment - wooden floors, high ceilings, lush decor - and for some reason, rather than being arranged like a regular waiting room, with the seats in rows or spaced against the four walls, this just had a few sofas chucked here and there and then a few random coffee shop type tables scattered around the middle. Thank god it was almost empty when I arrived and I could just cower in a corner, rather than being forced to sit awkwardly opposite someone coughy in the centre of the room.
The entrance to the doc's examination chamber was a giant wooden door, and in the hour or so I was left waiting like a chump, I could hear the muffled voices of the preceding patients but couldn't really make out anything they said. All good - if all the waiting room people could hear from me when my turn came was unintelligible noise, I had nothing to worry about right? Wrong. Read on.
So my turn eventually came and in I went. It was fucking terrifying in there. He sat me on a high straight-backed leather chair and positioned it and himself so that there was no way of me missing all the hideous, shiny metal gadgets he had at his disposal. I'm pretty sure at one point he even made a grand sweeping gesture towards them and sniggered a bit. I may be paraphrasing a little here but he then announced he was going to violently ram a camera on a pointy metal stick down my throat, and stressed "but only about 10cm down" so as not to alarm me - Just the 10cm? Thank fuck for that then eh?
At this point I'm trying to appear as casual as I can by slouching low in the chair, with my legs spaced apart. I'm actually over-relaxing, my arse barely on the seat, and it's a bit uncomfortable, but that doesn't matter. You don't scare me doc - just look how relaxed I am.
The doctor then comes over and orders me to sit up straight with my feet and knees together and my hands resting on my knees. He then straddles me. Imagine that - I already look like a tool and we're not even started on the camera fellatio yet. He then pulls on a rubber glove, gently grabs my tongue and asks me to make a "heeeeeeee" sound so as to raise my epiglottis out of the way of the camera. Now having initially sworn this as impossible, I've since tried and it's not difficult at all. Try it yourself - hold your tongue and go "heeeeeeeeee" all high-pitched. My words alone cannot do justice to the pathetic sounds that came from my face when I tried, so I've made you all a nifty little audio clip:
