"Bzzz! Bzzzz!" the doctor explained to me, jerking his hands spasmodically to show the effect of electricity on one's body. It was at this time that I first noticed that the doctor was not wearing a shirt under his doctor's coat. My doctor was no more legitimate than my Chloe bag. Conned again.
I considered my options. My first instinct was to fling myself off the table, emphatically stating that there will be no electrocution of Meghan today! Only... there were needles on my head, neck, hands, feet, arms, and chest. The needles were attached to electric wires. The electric wires were connected to what I could only hope was a safe-for-humans voltage box. And the voltage box was controlled by Dr. Qu, who was currently miming the word electricity in a very theatrical way.
Obviously, jumping off the table in a righteous fury would be challenging. Righteous fury is often lost in translation, I don't know the word for electrocution, and most importantly, I had dozens of tiny needles piercing my skin.
My Dr. Kevorkian/Qu smiled benevolently down at me, and I was filled with a sense of foreboding. But the idea of plucking each needle out of my skin while trying to convey my horror seemed dismally time consuming, and I made the executive decision to just let this happen. After all, the worst that worst that could happen: my brain frizzles.
I passively watched as Dr. Qu turned the dial on the voltage box. The needles started jumping around in my head while Dr. Qu interrogated me as to my favorite type of Chinese food and how I could possibly prefer Greek food to Chinese food.
"Greece is so small! How could you like their food more? So strange!" he marveled. When I noted that actually, this (meaning the electric needles) was more strange than my food preference, he and the other patients and nurses in the ward all laughed at me.
