A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away called the 1970s, Garrett Morris* was on Saturday Night Live.  I vividly remember one skit in particular from his days on the show (other than Baseball Been Very Very Good To Me, which I'm pretty sure would be considered so hideously politically incorrect these days that it wouldn't fly but not nearly so bad as Eddie Murphy's comedy albums  - yeah, I said it, ALBUMS - which features those riffs about AIDS and Arabs) about "The White Bus."



In this skit at least inasmuch as my feeble memory permits me to recall Garrett  Morris gets on a city bus disguised as a white person.  The bus travels along, making its stops, and at the point when the only remaining black person got off the bus, the lights changed, a disco ball dropped from the ceiling, previously unnoticed scantily clad waitresses hopped up from their seats and started serving snacks and cocktails, and the bus driver wouldn't allow any white people to pay a fare, thus confirming the Garrett Morris character's suspicions about white privilege in the United States.  It's actually pretty brilliant as satire, and, alas, probably no less meaningful today as then.

BUT ANYWAY.

Today I went to the gynecologist for the yearly business.

I know, duh.  Obviously you knew this is where I was going when I started talking about race relations and Saturday Night Live.

I'm pretty much anxiety and self-consciousness free at the gyno (or anywhere else, god help me) about the whole get naked and have people poke at you routine.  Maybe that's a post-pregnancy/childbirth thing.  Once your doctor has trooped a crowd of medical students in to look at your cervix under bright lights at 10 a.m. without even considering closing the door to your room, modesty seems a little beside the point.

Nevertheless, I can't help but suspect that if men had regularly scheduled urology appointments that involved the same degree of bodily, uh, intrusion, as women's gynecological exams, they'd totally be riding the White Bus.

The nurses wouldn't be wearing sensible shoes and smocks decorated with diaper pins and teddy bears, but would be "nurses," complete with short skirts, little white hats, and high heeled shoes.





The waiting rooms wouldn't feature warnings about flu vaccines and HPV and gestational diabetes and scarred, abused plastic pull toys for the toddlers who had to come along to the appointments, but would instead be decorated with a self-serve bar, personal flat screen tvs, and possibly a stripper pole.

Instead of fluorescent lighting, the office would be illuminated by 40 watt tinted bulbs in wall sconces and aromatherapy candles. 

Instead of the crinkle of exam table paper, patients' ears would be soothed by the sounds of nature sounds on CD or Enya or Tibetan monks chanting.

Instead of an environment in which, for some reason completely inexplicable by science, one's feet smell worse than ever before, every unshaved leg hair is instantly visible, one's deodorant ceases normal functioning, and the skin on one's calves is flaky and dry and scaly looking, patients would be treated to steam showers and then provided with unguents and elixirs to make themselves feel, look, and smell like lavender and rosemary.

Instead of stirrups, men would recline on massage tables.

Instead of the rubber gloves and lube (and not in a good way), men would be first administered valium...then the rubber gloves and lube. 

Instead of the pleasure of paying for the experience on the way out the door, Uncle Sam would pick up the tab, and the office would even break a five into ones for the patient to tuck in the nurse's g-string.

Yep. 

The White Bus.


*  Mea Culpa.  Thanks for all your emails, comments, phone messages, texts, and bricks with notes tied around them thrown through the front window...It was NOT Garrett Morris, but Eddie Murphy in the skit.  You can see, can't you, how that's an easy mistake to make?  I mean.  It's obvious, really.  The skit was funny, the Garrett Morris years on SNL were funny.  The Eddie Murphy/Joe Piscopo/Julia Louis Dreyfuss/Anthony Michael Hall years?  Less funny.  I'm not changing the picture, you'll notice, because I think Garrett Morris deserves a little air time.  Besides, Eddie Murphy became kind of douchy.