At one point I felt like an Ape on Animal Planet…

If you are new to Posted Note then you might not know that last year was a dark year for me. A year filled with no insurance and no ultimate frisbee. Both of those things have been remedied this year and the subsequent joy of being able to inflict injury and pain on my body once again has been overwhelmingly wonderful. What has not been wonderful has been going to the doctor only to find that despite the fact that I have great insurance it is still costing me the same cost of an iPod Nano each time I go.

“Do you have any problems in your groin area that you want me to look at?” My doctor asked this after he had already looked at my face and my feet. My face has a mole on it and I wanted to have it checked out because I don’t want cancer on my face. When they go in to remove cancerous spots on your skin they go in deep and they remove a large area around the mole to be sure to get all the cancer. This particular mole is above my eyebrow and I envisioned the doctor telling me, “We are going to need to remove half of your eyebrow in the cancerous mole removal process…” I would then tell him, “What am I going to do with half an eyebrow?” Where he would reply, “You could just shave them both off completely” as if that is a completely viable option.

This particular dermatologist did not look like a dermatologist. Instead, he looks like the lead singer from The Killers. Not the look they were going for in their album Hot Fuss which was more punk/emo, but the look they are going for in their new album Sam’s Town in which each member has grown a beard and has hair like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. He is almost as tall as me and I imagine that underneath his white lab coat and blue tie lies a black t-shirt and arms covered in tattoos. In the evening he moonlights in Deep Ellum at the Gypsy Tea room playing indie/folk rock and his fingernails are painted black.

“No” is my response to his question about me wanting him to inspect my groin area for any problems. Nothing wrong down there and yes, it has been inspected thoroughly thank you very much. However, when he asked me if I wanted him to check my back and stomach I said yes. I thought I may as well have my upper torso inspected while I was here. I removed my shirt and my undershirt and felt very exposed since the Doctor and his nurse were looking at me.

Dr. Rockstar grabbed my arm and started meticulously looking at my hand and then worked his way to my back. He lifted my arms and at one point even grabbed my head and inspected the top of it. I felt like an ape on Animal Planet being groomed by another Ape. Thankfully he didn’t find any cancerous moles or fleas.

I got dressed and then paid the 80 dollars for what? Peace of mind? Yes. Peace of mind is expensive these days. I still don’t understand why it cost 80 bucks for a doctor visit and why my insurance isn’t covering all of this. In the past when I had different insurance they didn’t charge you unless they had to lance something off your body or use a sonogram machine to inspect your testicles – both of which seem perfectly okay to charge extra for.