“Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis.”

- Jack Handey

I had the wonderful pleasure this week of going to the doctor's office.

Was I sick? No, actually, I've never felt better, but it seems that my insurance company has this program called “wellness visits.” I can smell a scam a mile away and this has to be the best one yet: having to make an appointment when you feel perfectly healthy. I don't know who thought this up but the logic sort of escapes me. What's next? Is my life insurance company going to come to my house and check my pulse?

Now if it was just simply called a physical then maybe I'd see the point, but that's the twist.

You see if you go in for a physical, and they find something wrong, your covered but if you go in for a wellness check and leave with a diagnosis then your premium kicks in.

To put this into context it's sort of like playing a medical lottery, only your hoping your number never comes up.

I could rant and rave about the way insurance companies are giving me a headache but I won't because I'll need to be in top shape for when the doctor snaps that rubber glove on.

When I hear that sound the doctor always has my complete and undivided attention. Cough? Heck, she could ask me to sing a show tune because the way I see it, at that gentle moment she has all the power and I'm willing to take requests.

But, like always, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Yes, I made the appointment and, as per usual, I had to sit in the waiting room trying hard to avoid every coughing schlep sitting next to me.

While I was sitting there I noticed a book on the table (Note to Reader: If you see books instead of magazines at the doctors office, be prepared for a long wait). It was called “All I Really Needed To Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” by a man named Roger Fulghum. Nice book, lots of pages. Can't say I actually read any of it though.

I figured the title said it all. For a moment I felt cheated because if the cover was true then I had wasted a lot of time going to high school.

But it did make me think of all the lessons I learned back then and for the life of me all I could remember were these two things. If you take a pencil and a paper plate and trace around your hand, eventually you can make it look like a turkey. The only other lesson being that in a pinch, paste makes an excellent hors d'oeuvre. This would probably explain the reason no one ever comes to my dinner parties.

I was feeling fine sitting there among the patients until the nurse called my name and then ... a cold chill went up my spine. I hoped the doctor didn't take the advice of that book when getting her medical degree.

Auburn native Bradley Molloy's column appears here, each

Sunday, in The Citizen.

He can be reached at lovonian@hotmail.com