hack noun 1. a writer producing dull, unoriginal work.  2. a dry, unproductive cough

It was the end of a long, cold February day in Iowa City, and I had the pleasure of being in the company of an attractive woman.  The fact that she was a talker made her more so.  There was nothing more I wanted than for her to keep right on talking.  It was hardly the first time I had felt that way.  Winter is the loneliest of times.

“Do you weld?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Are you a welder?” she asked.  “My Dad was a welder.  He had lung trouble.  They finally found out it was because of the fumes.  Do you weld?”

“No.  I’m not a welder.”

“Well, I really hope they find out what is going on with you.  Hopefully this scan will help them do that.”

I imagined we had been moving through that scan like cattle, and the fact that she could hold such a thought for me, a stranger at the end of the day, I found remarkable.  It was no surprise that she would wonder if I was like her Dad.  By now I was used to wondering whether she wanted me to be.

I had never seen anyone wear black scrubs before, and why the gal with the CT scan was wearing them was beyond me.  If she looked like an angel, then it was the Angel of Death.  Surely there were more cheerful colors, for surely there were those getting much worse news than I.

I had lived the previous two years thinking my persistent cough was the omen of something inheritable and, until a few months ago, largely untreatable.  (You might think me a hypochondriac, but I never have been before and am too old to go around picking up new habits now.)  An hour prior to the scan, I had found out it didn’t have anything to do with an inheritance at all.  It might just be heartburn or a calcified lymph node causing a tickle.  This should have been good news, but in some strange way I felt unaffected by it.

Now I even felt disappointed.  Her concern was unwarranted.  Still, she didn’t know that, so I didn’t tell her.

To get to the precautionary CT scan, I had made my way through a series of waiting rooms.  Most in them were older.  One was younger.  For some moving from waiting room to waiting room is like living; for some it is like dying.  While we tend to think the two are different, perhaps the only differences are immediacy and how you want to look at it.

“Your shirt has metal snaps; it will have to come off.”

It did and in the process revealed the extra 15-20 pounds it was probably doing a poor job of hiding anyway.

“I will have you lay right here on this table.  Don’t worry about your boots; they’re fine.  Now if you would just place both your hands above your head…perfect.  All right, the table is going to move through the scan and you will hear a voice telling you how to breathe, until then just breathe normally.”

For the first time in my life, looking at my pale, white belly and my lanky arms devoid of tone, I felt old.  It passed, though.  I then closed my eyes and prayed that they find the harpoon that got me.

When it was over, I snapped the shirt, donned the long black coat, and stood up in the boots which allowed me to reclaim as many of the trappings of youth my receding hairline would allow.  On the way home I stopped in West Des Moines and filled a prescription for an antacid and an inhaler.  I paid the man and handed half of my reclaimed trappings back.