A rite of passage is defined as a ritual or ceremony signifying an event in a person's life indicative of a transition from one stage to another, as from adolescence to adulthood. For a baby there's the first haircut, for a young girl there's a sweet 16 to mark her transition into womanhood, and for me, at 41...drum roll please...there's a mammogram.
Yes, I had my first mammogram last night, and as I told my friend at work, that machine is a torture device straight out of the movie Saw. As if the 'pinch' (that's what they said it would feel like, yeah right) from the vise-like grip on my breasts wasn't enough, add to that the technician manhandling my breasts like they were silly putty to get it 'just right' for the imaging. Discomfort and embarassment rolled into one pretty little package. I just hope I never run into that technician in a social setting. Can anybody say "awkward".
I guess now that I'll be having my breasts flattened into an unrecognizable pancake on a yearly basis, I can officially say that I've transitioned into middle age. Yippee for me! I don't even want to think of the great rite of passage waiting for me at 50, a colonoscopy. I'm glad I still have 9 years left to prepare myself for that one, because my butt cheeks are clenching just thinking about it.
