Now let me tell you about my visit to the 'Hostile Hospital'.

Not really a hostile hospital, but it just sounded nice because it's Snickety. After days and months of near-panic that i was suffering from multiple illnesses - thanks to the regularity with which i have been falling ill - i decided to take the plunge. So i went to Elbit.

The family wanted to come along. And i told them there were some facts of life they were better left in the dark about - like perhaps my liver being damaged because of excessive alcoholism, or my uterus doubling as a breeding ground for cysts and fibroids and stuff. Actually, i didn't really say all that. I couldn't. So i quietly let my mother accompany me.

At the reception, i asked for the Healthy Woman Exam. The first thing she asked me, of course, was if i was married. And i told her i was single. "Then you can't take the test ma'am. It has a Paps Smear test." Thinking i had heard wrong, i asked her again. And she answered in almost the exact same words: I wasn't married, so i couldn't take the Paps Smear test, therefore the Healthy Woman exam. Obviously, i had to let the matter rest because mom was around, otherwise i'd have asked her if her recruitment had virginity as one of the qualifications for employment, or by some chance, her name was Mary with a 'Saint' thrown in somewhere for good measure. Bloody hell. My single status isn't necessarily proof of anything innocent. Or deprived. What if it turns out later that i've actually been suffering from AIDS and could have been cured if i could have had it diagnosed today? What if i have some other horrific disease of the sort? What if? Huh?

Benignly smiling at her, i opted for the Executive Health Check-up. Mom and i stepped into the lift - more like a cage of flimsy metal dangling in mid-air because we could see a gaping hole in the earth under the lift. Needless to say, the urine sample was not a tough job at all considering i was all set to pee in my pants all the way to the second floor, praying to God to spare me the irony of plunging me to my death in a hospital.

The blood samples were a little more painful though. I was completely fascinated by the colour of my own blood - a deep, dark red. I was even more fascinated by what seemed like bubbles spurting forth into the container. "You think those are bubbles? How will bubbles get into the blood?", asked the guy who was drawing it from me. "That is fat."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know who was more disgusted - him or me. I realised i couldn't get away with pinning it all down to voluptousness. It was sick, greasy fat. Ugh. I really, really have to work it all off.

I also know now why the canteen food is so average too. If people get such bad news all the time, they'll be more than happy to eat the bland food thinking its healthy.