I am a woman!!! So why don't gynecologists organize competitions to at least make it interesting? I mean, while you're lying there, with your legs open to the world, why not move things along with a touch of frivolity? Count the holes in the ceiling tiles or count how many miles until it reaches China or even how many organs will still be intact? The act of submitting to the humiliation of inspection, ever since the first cavewoman crouched during childbirth, has loomed large in the female consciousness as a unifying force capable of exploding into repressed rage. Women have been prodded, probed, scrutinized, reduced, groped, impregnated, penetrated and groped since the dawn of civilization. From the information I have gathered over my years of thriving womanhood, the paradigm should shift at least as much as breasts do with gravity. I'm not alone. In locker rooms, sorority dorms, Tupperware parties, and PTA meetings, sisterhood has been built on the collective misery resulting from the dysfunction and failure of the female anatomy. I've heard stories that would send TV producers racing for a time slot to resurrect "Queen for a Day." Who wouldn't be moved by the Syracuse woman who felt like she had the flu: no energy, back pain and stomach cramps? To her surprise, she gave birth to a nine-pound baby boy on the Simonized kitchen floor of her double-wide mobile home. That's some kind of flu. Perhaps, by now, there is a scientific name (so the condition can be recognized by the AMA for possible funding). Something like Haagen-Daz syndrome or Gherkin-itis would help these women and their doctors distinguish between the flu and pregnancy. Then there's the Des Moines woman who, at age 75, gave birth to triplets and then sued her doctor for malpractice. The birth control pill he prescribed was not the correct dosage. That's what his lawyers say. It goes on and on. Sponsors of the show could offer huge prizes ranging from a year's supply of sanitary pads to Midol's proceeds. The grand prize, after the battle of the bulges, may be a trip to the Smithsonian Institution to view gynecological instruments dating back to the period of Western expansion of the United States. This would cheer up the most tense and distraught among us. Nothing builds solidarity like good old-fashioned trouble. Women, accused of being distracted by instinct, have a penchant for following their sisters' troubles.
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