My disaster? Well, I guess, if we're being honest, my disaster would be mostly my fault. Mine and some crappy Scotch tape's.

But what's the fun in being honest? Who doesn't delight in bending the rules, just a bit, the same way a smile bends our mouths' natural frown--the same scowl we have had since our loud, unpleasant births--into a happy, strawberry-lip-glossed joke? The same way all good stories evolve, like mankind, from some embarrassing nightmare (with or without clothes), into a hilarious anecdote embellished with tassels of shimmying laughter, pom-pons and a rickrack border of merry mauve tears? Everyone exults in bending the rules; anyone who's every sat on an old person's knee and listened to a tale with wide, awe-filled eyes, anyone who enjoys a good joke, they all know the thrill of a wee white lie. And I know you are one of these enlightened people.

And because you folks are so edified, I can confidently say that my disaster is due to that careless and rude radiation therapist, the same one who haunted my trip to the mustard-colored, air-conditioned hell where I am now a legend. If you accept this lie, then I accept you as audience for my story.

I hunched into my chair in the hospital's frigid waiting room, trying to ignore the stony faces surrounding me. I was trapped in a closet-sized room filled with gloomy scoliosis patients, each waiting to get a brace that would be the basis of all nightmares, if only it allowed its prisoner to sleep. We were all in the same boat as we waited to get our X-rays, knowing very well that if our heavyhearted boat should sink, each one of us would be weighed down by our braces and plummet like a rock. It was for that reason that I was not at all thrilled when a peaked receptionist called my name, even if getting a brace meant that I could leave this cramped, cold room with five copies of Highlights but not one of People.

A stooped, scowling sixty-something turned out to be my doctor, and in a crumpled voice that reeked of twisted bones and stale Raisin Bran, she told me to take everything off--EVERYTHING--and put on my gown. Off went my T-shirt, off went my jeans, on went a flimsy, floral hospital gown with (of course) an open back. I hobbled into the room where she waited, sitting in a swivel chair and impatiently tapping her sensible brown heel, and was attacked. A strip of heavy black fabric was draped around my neck 'to protect my breasts from the radiation'�. I expected the likeness of that to wrap around my hips to protect my ovaries, but no. That would have been too kind. Dr. Garabaldi produced a small, circular cutout of white cardboard--well, it looked like cardboard--which was taped to my tummy. How humbling. I now felt like the skinny quarterback with the XXS jockstrap.

Dr. Garabaldi hurried into a small, protected corner of the room, one that housed several sinister-looking machines and gadgets, and eyed me. 'Stand as still as you can!'� she barked from her fort. 'I'm going to start the X-Ray, OK?'�

I nodded and she glared at me.

The room became deathly quiet as she fumbled with various buttons and levers, until she finally hissed into the silence, 'Hold your breath!'�
I sucked in my stomach and focused on not making a sound, not moving a muscle, trying to simply fade away. Not one toe trembled, not one hair quaked.

Plop.

With a degradingly effinmate plop, my ovary-shield dropped to the floor. I slowly looked down at the off-white circle that had meekly plunked onto my toes, choking back laughter.

Dr. Garabaldi, however, didn't seem to notice. She was immersed in the preparation of ovary-frying X-rays. She held up a gnarled hand, signaling to me that uterus-baking radiation was ready to be shot at my unprotected fallopians in three...two...

'Nodonfasdoholymee!!'� With an urgent, inhumane shriek, I leapt out of the X-rays' path, not willing to risk my baby-making ability on this deaf old woman. I mean, I have my rights! My estrogen-fueled instincts told me to get as far away from that woman-wrenching beam as possible. Dr. Garabaldi looked up, severely irritated, as I maniacally hurdled backwards, arms flailing--right into and out the door. For one surreal moment, I was airborne. The two flaps of my open-backed hopsital-gown were my wings; I was an enormous, spinal sparrow. Then I crashed to the back to earth, to the sour yellow rug of the waiting area, carpeting as rough as Dr. Garabaldi's quivering double-chin. Desperately, I tried to break my fall with my hands, and landed, butt-up, with my paper gown ripped in all the wrong places, my bare naked ass exposed to every single person in the room. My triumphant sister swears she heard me shriek, as I fell through the door, 'NOT MY UTERUS!'�. Lying there, I wanted nothing more than to crawl into one of the deeply-etched wrinkles of Dr. Garabaldi's face and huddle there for eternity. Maybe my nostrils would become immune to her moldy-lavendar stench; then once I was ready to face the world, I'd be tough enough to hide out in Florida!

I kept my ovaries. I lost my pride.

The worst part is that I had to go back and face a furious Dr. Garabaldi for a second round of X-rays. I nearly cried when I saw her put extra tape on that damn cardboard cutout.

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