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“We’ve all got something down there, don’t we?” He let out a guffaw at his joke.
    I didn’t want to seem like a bitch so I smiled—tightly—while he got over himself.
    “Ahem, yes, well, let’s take a look,” he finally said.
    I put my feet in the stirrups and scooted down the table while chanting my favorite mantra to myself. In twenty minutes this will all be over. In twenty minutes this will all be over. I’d been using that since the night before my first oral book report, substituting whatever period of time was appropriate. It worked, for the most part.
    “Uh-oh,” he said.
    I may not know a lot of things, but I do know that “uh-oh” isn’t something you want to hear your gynecologist say when he’s looking between your legs.
    “What? What’s wrong?” I tried to steady my heartbeat by reciting “The Three Little Pigs” in my head. When I got to the third little piggy that had herpes, I almost flipped out.
    “You have a fungus.”
    Eeeew. That was even worse than uh-oh. “A fungus?” My voice was an octave above its normal range, so I took a deep breath and pulled it back down. “How did I get a fungus down there?”
    The doctor stuck his head around the cloth covering my lower half. “What?” he yelled.
    I shouted back, “How did I get a fungus down there?”
    He stared at me, perplexed for a few seconds. “No, not down there. On your foot. It’s on the inside of your left foot. It’s just a little ringworm. You probably went outside without your shoes. Welcome to Florida. Get some of that ointment for jock itch and use it morning and night for six weeks.”
    Jeez. Yesterday I would have been appalled to learn I had a fungus on my foot. Today I was relieved.
    “What about the other?”
    “Looks like a contact dermatitis rash,” he said as he got to his feet.
    That was it? That was all he was going to say? I wasn’t paying someone to tell me it was a rash. That much I knew. Besides, that particular part of me hadn’t been contacted in months. From what I’d read online, contact dermatitis appeared immediately following the contact. Herpes, on the other hand, could show up at any time between contact and death.
    “Are you sure it’s not herpes?” There. I’d said it. The dreaded “H” word.
    “What?”
    “Herpes!” I shouted. “Could I have herpes?”
    “You have herpes?” He shrank back, as though afraid to stand too close.
    “No! I mean, I don’t know! I mean, I suppose I could. I had sex with someone …”
    “You had sex with your son?”
    If I hadn’t been so worried, I’d have laughed out loud, as ridiculous as the conversation was. I deliberated on whether or not I should leave before the situation deteriorated further, but I hadn’t come this far to find out nothing. And the worst part was over, surely.
    “Is there a test for herpes? I’d like to do the test for herpes, if you don’t mind.”
    “I don’t mind,” the doctor said. “Just let me see if I can find it. I don’t do a lot of them. Most of my patients have enough sense to use condoms.”
    I had sense too, but as far as I knew, they didn’t make a condom for someone’s tongue. You idiot, I told myself. The prospect of sex with Javiar Bardem after being sexless for almost two years had obviously knocked the sense right out of me.
    The doctor rummaged through a couple of drawers and scanned the shelves of a cabinet. Then he went to the door and opened it. “Has anyone seen the test for herpes?” he shouted. “I’ve got this woman in here who thinks she has herpes.”
    “Hey!” I said, but he was already out the door, closing it behind him. I could still hear him, though, and so could everyone else within a two-block radius.
    “Jane Dough here thinks she has herpes,” he yelled out. “Has anyone seen the herpes culture kit?”
    Holy crap! Was he really screaming my name out there within hearing distance of a packed waiting room? I did a frantic mental scan of the Health Information