I recently went to Portland, Oregon with a group of friends and didn’t drink enough water. I drank copious amounts of alcohol, but I seem to have abstained from drinking the liquid that covers three quarters of the earth. On the last day, to put it as delicately as possible, I started to feel a strange sensation while urinating. For women, this can often mean a urinary tract infection, but men my age don’t get those very often. Therefore I began to think I had contracted a sexually transmitted disease. How I had contracted a sexually transmitted disease after not having sex for a year and a half, I’m not really sure. I was convinced that I was the Virgin Mary of the 21st century. And this was the immaculate chlamydia.

Now I am not a fan of doctors, but these were extreme circumstances. So I went to the emergency room, a terrifying place I might add, and found myself explaining my situation to a nurse. But I was too ashamed to actually say it to her. She asked “what seems to be the problem?” and I just started making awkward hand gestures around my crotch and mumbling, like I was playing an elaborate game of medical charades with this woman and I was trying to act out the expression “dragon penis.” Finally the nurse tired of this and said “sir, you’re going to have to tell me what is wrong.” And at this point there were plenty of educated, well-expressed things I could have said like “I’m feeling a strange sensation while urinating that I’d like checked out.” Instead I said two words: “problem” and “penis”. That was it. And she didn’t even blink. She looked back at her clipboard and said “mmhmm,” as if she were checking a box that said “problem penis.”

So finally I get in to see the doctor. He takes my temperature, he takes my blood pressure, measures my heart rate and finally says that he’d like to check me for a hernia, a test I had not gotten in some time. As a side note, I’d like to ask why that is the only test in a physical that requires hand to skin contact? For temperature there’s a thermometer, for blood pressure there’s the arm thingie and for heartbeat there’s a stethoscope. It’s as if every time the hernia test rolls around the doctor will say “boy isn’t my face red. I seem to have forgotten my hernia testing device at home. Guess we’ll have to do this the old fashioned way!”

Anyway the doctor then stood back and said “well, since you’re not sexually active,” to which I hung my head and muttered “whatever, my eHarmony account is getting a lot of hits lately.” And then he continued “I think you have an inflamed prostate.”* Yeah. So I had thought that the hernia test was the only one involved hand to skin contact. But I was really, really wrong.

There are a few things in life that are better when they come early. Christmas. Subway trains. Getting a finger in your butthole twenty-five years before you’re due for your first prostate exam is not one of them. And I clearly hadn’t expected getting a prostate exam when I got to the doctor’s office. Like if I’d known I was having company I would’ve vacuumed or dusted, maybe put out some potpourri or something. It was kind of like having your parents show up at your house unannounced. Only instead of your parents, it was a stranger’s finger. And instead of your house, it’s your butthole.

I will proceed and try to be as tasteful as possible. The doctor asks me to lie down on my side and shape myself into the fetal position. And then there he was. Right in there. After a few seconds he says “I’d like you to clench like you’re about to have a movement,” which is a phrase that clearly should not be uttered outside of an interpretive dance class. And then, the best part was, he tried to make small talk. He asked me what my hobbies were. I told him I was trying to be a stand-up comedian to which he responded “oh, like Jim Belushi.” Yes. Like Jim Belushi. Please let this be over. Finally, as the exam ended and I opened my eyes and readjusted myself to my neon surroundings, he quietly said “this would make a really good story for your routine.”

*I apologize to readers who thought they wouldn’t be reading about an inflamed prostate on a Friday morning.