© Gemma can fly / Stocksy United
My gynecologist suggested that, since I am approaching 45 (sigh!), it is time for a mammogram. This is what women your age have to go through, he added. He explained the procedure to me, and I left his office with weird feelings. This will hurt for sure, I thought. Well, how can it not? Your boob will be squeezed to the size of a f***ing pancake. If you have read my previous articles for a while now, you might know that I love to overanalyse things and think things through, ha! So, below I share my thoughts on how I imagine this meeting on the invention of the mammogram machine for breast cancer prevention must have gone.
APRIL 1965
MEETING TO DISCUSS
BOOB CANCER PROBLEM
CARL: Gentlemen, I have some unfortunate news: We’ve just discovered that cancer can grow in women’s breasts.
TED: Oh no. That is going to ruin breasts for me.
FRANK: Me too.
CARL: As medical professionals, it’s incumbent upon us to invent an early detection system so this disease doesn’t ravage perfectly perky gazongas.
JOE: Couldn’t we just, you know, feel for it?
CARL: Unfortunately, not all cancers can be detected with a good old touch.
JOE: I hear the Germans are doing great things with X-rays. Maybe we can get women to take off their clothes for electromagnetic radiation.
FRANK: Hmm, I like the “take off their clothes” part, but not doing something tactile feels like a missed opportunity.
TED: Ooh, what about a machine that the boob has to be physically placed inside? Like, by us.
JOE: Yes! It could be manhandled onto a steel plate.
TED: Emphasis on the man!
JOE: And the room could be kept at subzero temperatures, so women get those cute little goose bumps.
CARL: I believe the scientific term is “piloerection.”
TED: Yeah, because they give me a pile of erections.
[Sound of a high five]JOE: And then a vice could crank down onto the tit and flatten it to the height of a vinyl record.
FRANK: What record?
JOE: Bob Dylan?
TED: Shouldn’t it be a woman?
JOE: Right. Joan Baez?
TED: Great boobs.
CARL: So the vice crushes the udders until the woman worries they might burst?
JOE: Exactly.
TED: Can they burst?
CARL: I’m not sure.
FRANK: Me neither.
JOE: Should we order lunch?
CARL: We’ll need a way to mark the nipple so it doesn’t look like an abnormality on the image.
FRANK: Right… what about an industrial adhesive tape that would come very close to ripping off the skin?
JOE: Smart.
TED: And if the nipple does rip off, we could stop the milk from pouring out with our mouths.
CARL: Naturally.
SANDRA: Maybe we could also use this technology to detect cancer in men’s testicles.
TED: …
CARL: …
FRANK: …
JOE: …
CARL: Sandra, could you get us lunch? I have a strange craving for pancakes.
[Audible sigh]JOE: Here’s a question: What if smashing the hooters permanently damages them?
FRANK: Oh, god. That would be worse than cancer. Maybe we could invent a separate procedure to plump them up. Like, an augmentation.
TED: Yes! We could offer it to all women, independent of the cancer stuff.
JOE: Absolutely.
FRANK: It would only be fair.
CARL: Well, gentlemen, this has been very productive. All that’s left is a name for the test.
JOE: How about the Chest Ray?
FRANK: The AwoogaTron?
TED: The Come to Papa 3000?
FRANK: The Gusher Crusher?
JOE: Pillow Press?
FRANK: Tit Stop?
TED: Teet-o-gram?
JOE: Can-o-gram?
TED: MAN-o-gram! You know, since we invented it.
CARL: Oh, that’s good.
SANDRA: Here are your pancakes.
JOE: Thank you, ma’am.
[Gasps]TED/JOE/FRANK/CARL: Ma’am-o-gram!