If you’ve never seen a 30-year-old almost have a heart attack, then you weren’t there this morning when that dog ran through my vegetable garden. He squashed my squash. Good thing for me, as it happened; I had an appointment this morning with a general practitioner to be checked out. I figured now that I’m three-oh, I should be looking for things like – I don’t know—whatever diseases older people get.

I need some other blood work than just the usual obstetric panel. Which, if you’re keeping count, I’ve had drawn seven times in the past nine years.

Around these parts, a five-kid family is huge. So, as it goes, the topic for my first visit with the general doc is my fertility. I rather enjoy the discussion usually. Really, most people are just curious about how much food costs and what our shoe closet must look like. For the record, he’s a very nice doc, even if he is a little too close to my own age.

Any psychiatric disorders? [snicker, snicker]

Do you drink? [snicker, snicker]

Are you under stress? [laugh, howl]

This was just the nurse who did the prescreening. When the doctor came in, he mentioned, “You don’t see such LARRRRGE families anymore.” Ha, ha, I thought, You should meet the wackos who read my blog. Five is nothing. But instead I just said, “And yes, I’ve seen that family on TV….”

“You know, the only people that have tons of children anymore are…” He paused as he searched for the right words for “right wing Christian fundamentalists,” or maybe it was “Muslim terrorists” but I wasn’t quite sure. He trailed off, and I let him off the hook by changing the subject to my great blood pressure stats. It’s always 110/70. I’m in great shape. This is good, because I need all my oomph to keep that dog out of my garden.