I don’t drink and I don’t normally do drugs. Yay me! Having said that, there are a few instances where I’ve gladly taken prescription narcotics. These include surgery, accidents, and MRIs. Yes, you say, but now they have the open Magnetic Resonance Imaging where they don’t have to cram you into an oversized toilet paper tube.

It’s true that your lower body sticks out in the open, but your head is still inches from the walls. Since my face, through which I breathe and see is attached to my head, I can hardly not notice the proximity of my nose to 1,000 pounds of oversized donut. Add to that the fact that I have a rather generous size noggin, and you get the real fear that it will take two crowbars, a winch, and a pound of chicken fat to pry me back out.

I have a very high tolerance for narcotics, and a very low tolerance for stuff up against my face, so I’m always careful to tell the doctors to make mine a double. Years ago, they failed to believe me, and I woke up in the middle of a surgical procedure. I yelled “Get it off me. I can’t breathe.” as I batted at the mask, all the while there were various surgical instruments sticking out of my neck. I need to seriously examine my priorities.

Since I stopped drinking, I haven’t felt the need to strip naked in the car on the way home from the office Christmas party. Good times. I haven’t done a face plant in my dinner plate while playing host to a table full of Canadian dignitaries. Trust me, it’s hard to be the gracious hostess with mashed potatoes up your nose.

Yes, that actually happened.

I had natural childbirth when I delivered both of my kids, while my Mom was taking hits of ether when she pooped me out. That probably explains a lot. I was feeling no pain when the doctor slapped me on the butt.

Hemingway may have been able to write The Old Man and the Sea while totally hammered, but when I’m drunk, I type a page full of nothing but semi colons. This does not make for classic literature.

So Wednesday when I go in for my MRI, I’m going to bite the bullet and refuse their offer of a handful of valium. I’ll just hum the theme song from Rocky quietly in my head. My dignity is at stake. Besides, they don’t have a bar that I can dance on.