hold your breath...

 Today, for the first time ever, I had an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scan.  It's a process that uses a large magnet and radio waves to take images of all of the organs and bones, etc. in your body.  The whole process was an adventure.  First a nice lady named Brenda lead me down a long corridor, onto an elevator, down to the lowest level of the building, then along another long corridor, to a dressing room where I removed my clothes and put on scrubs (saggy and loose but quite comfy). This was to make sure there was nothing metal on my body that could be burned into my skin by the procedure. I had left my wedding ring at home. Evidently my replacement hip was not a problem, which is good because removing it was not in the plan.  Then Brenda led me into 'the room' where a large cube with a bed sticking out of a tube cut into it waited. They had me stretch out on a hard metal bed which actually contained one of the cameras, positioned on my back, with my arms up over my head.  Then they settled a cage over my ribs and spread a warm blanket over me.  The blanket was a nice touch.  They told me it would be noisy in the tube and popped plugs in my ears, put some padding against my arms, told me to keep my eyes shut and not to move, and off we went into the world's slowest amusement park ride.  The noise was loud but rather fascinating, like creatures from outer space communicating in loud blasts and quieter repetitive beeps and bleeps.  I couldn't understand their language but they certainly seemed excited about something.  I could imagine them saying something like "Woah, look at that kidney."  After what seemed like an hour but was probably only about ten or fifteen minutes, a soft ethereal voice told me to hold my breath four times, twice for 20 second and twice for 15 seconds.  Finally, they slowly backed me out of the tube and it was all over.  After I was dressed Brenda took me back to the elevator and up to the waiting room where my spouse was waiting to whisk me off to Divine Encounter for brunch.  My reward for surviving the alien encounter.