PEANUT BUTTER CRACKERS
AT PLANNED PARENTHOOD

I broke things off with a polyamorous, Italian man I met on Hinge at the same time I finished the first season of Girls and became horrified that I had HPV. In the episode, the protagonist, Hannah, finds out she has HPV despite her constant use of condoms during sex. Hannah’s best friend, Marnie, starts crying when she learns about Hannah's diagnosis and says, “It’s just so unfair, Hannah. Like, you’re so careful about sex and everything. And you’re like, nervous. I just figured that, like for people who are really, really scared of flying, their planes never go down. It’s just not how it works.” So I needed to get tested. For the first time. 

       None of my previous partners had any STD or STI that I knew of, and I had no symptoms myself. Yet, I could picture the virus laying dormant in my vaginal walls, festering into bulbous warts so bad I'd need to shove a toothbrush up there to scrub the sickness out. (This is an imaginary solution to a fictitious problem and cleaning your vagina with a toothbrush is not recommended by any medical professionals). After a few sleepless nights and a newfound aversion to my no-no squares, I booked an STI screening appointment at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Boston. 

       I told a few friends about it, hoping they’d provide insight into what I should expect. “There might be people protesting outside when you go so be prepared,” one told me. “But if you’re lucky, you’ll also see rushees from the BU frats counter-protesting the pro-lifers. My boyfriend had to do that when he rushed Lambda Chi.” 

       “Wow, that’s kind of awesome. It’s like anti-hazing. And pro-women!” 

       “Yeah, exactly. It’s quite a sight.” 

       When I showed up to my appointment, midday on a Monday, no one was standing outside the beige, concrete building except for a few Boston University students shuttling to and from classes. I was partially disappointed by this as I had prepared to shove a middle finger in some protesters' faces or scream statistics at them so I could have a cool story to tell my friends later. I would be like Joan of Arc leading my army into the face of our bigoted foe. Instead, I entered the building as I would a grocery store–ordinary as could be. But upon entering, I was shocked to see the two security guards, a metal detector, and two sets of doors leading into the lobby that required the click of a buzzer underneath the security desk to unlock. It felt like the airport, although the guards I spoke with at Planned Parenthood were much kinder than any TSA agent I’d met at Logan. 

       “Hi, miss, how are you today?” One of them asked, looking up at me with soft eyes. 

       “I’m alright, how are you?” 

       “Just fine, miss, I’m just fine. If you wouldn’t mind telling me your name…” 

       “Last name is Shaheen. S-H-A-H-E-E-N.”  From behind the desk, the guard began scrolling through a list of names, probably women from all around the city, returning patients or first-timers like me. L. Brayberry is coming to get cryotherapy to treat her genital warts. P. Chu just had a baby. B. Petrov needs a rape kit. S. Ramirez is having an abortion. M. Jeffries wants to hear about her birth control options. I had no idea what an STI screening entailed and was about to find out. And millions more. Yesterday, today, and hopefully tomorrow. 

       “Right, here you are,” he said before motioning for me to walk through the metal detectors. I handed him my bag, which he searched for firearms, smoke bombs, or any far-right protest propaganda, but all I had was my laptop, wallet, some books, and a plastic sandwich bag of peanut butter crackers that had crumbled under the weight of everything else. Two sets of double doors with loose handles made a loud but brief “BBBZZZZZZ” sound, and I moved on into the lobby. It was larger than a typical doctor’s office with bowls of multi-colored, multi-sized condoms on every end table. I was waved over to someone wo-manning another desk stacked with forms for me to fill out. This process was followed by a long stretch of watching HGTV in the waiting room. I sat down in the corner of the room next to a particularly stocked basket of contraceptives before another buzz sounded through the lobby, and a girl I recognized walked in. We had a class together at college. We sat in the same row. I looked down at my lap once I saw her, worried that seeing a peer might be overwhelming for her in a place where perhaps she intended to be incognito. I was shocked to see her, considering the odds that we would both be at this Planned Parenthood at the same time on a random Monday. Once she was done filling out her own stack of forms, she moved to the other side of the waiting room and made eye contact with me as she sat down. 

       “Hey,” I said to her in a way that read, “What are the odds, girl? Look at us prioritizing our sexual health!”

       “Hey.” She pointed at me as if to say, “Woah, it’s you. And me. Here right now. How weird!”

       “How are you?” 

       “Good, how are you?” 

       “Good.” We both looked down at our phones, simultaneously agreeing that more conversation might not be entirely appropriate, even though I wanted to know why she was there and if we were in the same boat at all. I was called over by a nurse a few minutes later. We did not acknowledge each other as I was led out of the waiting room. The nurse brought me to the entrance of a narrow hallway, the door to which was unlocked with the tap of her ID, clipped to the pocket of her teal scrubs. In a small room with a recliner, I was told to sit so she could take my blood pressure. 

       “Can I just confirm your date of birth?” she asked me, voice muffled by her N-95 mask. 

       “Shaheen, Caraline. April 5, 2004.” 

       “Oh, that’s cool. My best friend’s last name is Shaheen, I’ve never met anyone else with that name before.” 

       “Oh, cool,” I said as the black cuff cinched tighter and tighter around my flabby bicep. I wanted to ask her what her best friend’s name was. Maybe we were related. It wouldn’t be too crazy of a coincidence, like running into a classmate on your first trip to Planned Parenthood. But again, I said nothing. Was she allowed to give out that information? Her best friend isn’t a patient, surely, so would it be overstepping to ask for her name? I didn’t know. I’m still not sure. 

       “Your blood pressure looks good,” she said, removing the Velcro cuff from my arm before noting my numbers into the laptop she carried with her.  

       “Epic!” My choice of words shed light on how nervous I was becoming. I realized I did no research before my appointment about what kind of testing they would need to conduct. Swabbing? Pap smearing? Blood taking? Urine test? Hypnotism? The possibilities, realistic and otherwise, droned in my head as I was brought back out through the lobby, two more sets of locked doors, and a long corridor of exam rooms before we stopped at the last room in the hall. The paper on the exam chair crinkled as I sat down, its stirrups locked in place underneath the cushioned seat. The nurse, whose name I learned was Rachel, sat on the spinny doctor’s chair at the other side of the room. I was jealous. I love a good spinny chair. 

       “Okay, I’m going to ask you some questions so we can understand what kind of testing would be best for you today. But if you feel uncomfortable answering anything, just let me know, and we can move on.” 

       “Got it.” Did anyone ever refuse to answer their questions? Could someone still get tested if they refused to admit to having sex at all? I wanted to answer all of Rachel’s questions. It was kind of fun to reflect on my sexual history. Well, a good portion of it, at least. 

       “Do you have any current symptoms?” 

       “No.” 

       “What kind of sexual contact have you had? Oral, vaginal, anal? All three?” 

       "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.” 

       “Have you had an STI before?” 

       “No.”

       “And how often do you use protection? Sometimes, always, rarely?” 

       “xxxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxx,xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.” 

       “Have any of your previous partners had an STI that you know of?” 

       “No.”

       “Alrighty. How many sexual partners have you had?” 

       “xxxxxxxxxxxx.”  

       “Okay…Sounds good.” Rachel clicked around on her computer screen, filling in the boxes of my sex life. “I think we’ll do a swab test and a blood test today if you’re comfortable with that?” 

       “Sure, sure, that’s fine. Can I just ask, how does this all work?” 

       “Thank you for asking!” Rachel responded as if no one had asked that before. She pulled a laminated sheet from underneath her laptop and handed it over to me.

​

       “The swab test you can do yourself. One oral and one vaginal. Then another nurse will come in and do the blood test for you after you see the doctor.” 

       “Okay,” I said, skimming over the chart. “And uh–how much blood do you guys need?”

       I feel it’s important to mention at this point that I’m afraid of needles. Not only the insertion of them but also their ability to inject and withdraw. Thinking of something poking into my vein makes my knees wobbly. I cried every time I got vaccinated until I was fifteen years old. Even though I’ve grown out of that, I still consider it a triumph if I can get a round of shots without shedding tears. 

       “We need about two vials.” She held up a bent pointer finger and thumb to show me the estimated volume. “Is that alright?” She smiled as my face fell in unabashed fear. 

       “Yeah, yeah, that’s fine.” 

       “Alright, good. You can always change your mind and just do the swab test if you’re more comfortable with that. I’m all set here, the doctor will be in shortly. Her name is also Rachel.” I thanked her, and she left the room. 

       I was then alone, staring at a poster of labeled genitalia in silence. I thought about the size of balls. The weight of them. How silly they looked in a diagram. I turned my attention to the female diagrams. I thought about the vagina. The vulva. The uterus. How indubitably incredible it is, and yet so customary. So many are walking down the streets, protected by fleshy machines—the opus of human nature. Did the person who drew those diagrams have a model, or did they copy the images of visible genitalia from other copies? Who was the first person to put privates to paper? What did people think of that at the time? Then I thought of my own vagina. My vulva. My uterus. How I hoped they were squeaky clean. Then about how subjective the idea of cleanliness is. 

       I was only alone for a short while before Rachel #2 arrived in the room and asked me to verify my identity, which I did. She was wearing the same color of scrubs as Rachel #1 but wore her hair down in loose red, ringlets instead of pulled back in a bun. She confirmed that I had no current symptoms and was just coming in as a precaution because I’m smart, responsible, and a big girl who was trying very hard at that moment not to think about needles. 

       “So we’re doing a swab test and a blood test today, correct?” 

       “Yeah, let’s do it,” I said as if ordering a round of appetizers. 

       Rachel #2 set two glass vials, half-full with clear liquid, on the desk beside two long medical swabs wrapped in paper covers. She ran through what I was to do after she left the room before a different nurse came in to draw my blood. 

       “Do you get woozy when you have blood drawn?” 

       “Sometimes.” 

       “Have you eaten today?” 

       “I had breakfast.” 

       “Alright, you’ll be fine.” 

       She spoke fast, I was worried I would miss a step or contaminate one test with fluid for a different test. Knowing she went through this script several times every day, I didn’t bother asking her to repeat it, and then she was gone. I lifted my phone from my lap to check the time: 2:46 p.m. As I stood, unzipped my jeans, and let them fall to my ankles, I realized that I had eaten breakfast almost six hours ago and was certainly at risk of passing out. Without pulling my pants back up, I waddled over to the door where my bag was hung and dug through it. My peanut butter crackers were still edible, albeit messy. I began to worry that the blood-drawing nurse would walk in on me, ass out, hovering over a plastic bag of sticky cracker bits that sprinkled from the corners of my mouth. In an attempt to avoid that reality, which seemed certain to me, I began shoveling the crackers into my mouth while pacing the room, pants still down around my ankles, as if moving my feet would make the food go down faster. I was leaving crumbs all over the floor and would intermittently bend down, cheeks splayed to the eyes of God, to pick pieces off the linoleum, and flick them into the trash can labeled “BIOHAZARD WASTE.” 

       Once the crackers had been consumed and the sandwich bag discarded, I wiped my hands across my shirt a few times, ears perked to hear the sound of footsteps outside the exam room. I was to administer the swab test like one does a COVID test—stick the swabs where they need to go, swirl them around like a ladle in a pot of stew, then steep them in the vials of clear liquid. I unwrapped the first swab and stuck it up inside me. I was so tightly wound that the stick would hardly move further than a centimeter. I didn’t account for this before shoving it upwards with force and then gasping out in pain. “Owww, fuck!” I said as I retracted the swab, took a stiff breath, and inserted it again, this time moving it up as far as a tampon and swishing it around the walls of my insides ten times. Afterward, I unscrewed the vial labeled “V” for vaginal (could be the title of an interesting children’s book), dipped the swab inside, and set it back on the tray before repeating the opposite steps for the oral test, sticking the swab North instead of South. I pulled my pants back up, sat back on the crinkly paper, and waited for another five minutes until the blood-drawing nurse gave a knock and came in. My rushing was unnecessary. 

       “I hate needles,” I said as she laid her medical equipment across the table. While she worked, I looked about the ten-by-ten room at anything other than her sharp devices—the ceiling, the genitalia posters, the condoms, the biohazard bin where my DNA sat, mingling with the germs of others. 

       “Really? Have you fainted before?” she asked, looking up in subtle shock at the grown(ish) woman whose legs were shaking in preparation for her blood to be drawn. 

       “From getting my blood taken?” 

       “Yeah.” 

       “No. Not from that.” 

       “Okay, good. I’ll get this done as soon as possible.” 

       She directed me through all the steps she learned in medical school. Or was learning in medical school since she seemed to be around my age. I also read her youth from the ways she distracted me while searching my arm for a vein to pierce. We talked of roommates and who was snubbed at the Oscars—specifically the movie Challengers which I’m convinced only horny, young people loved. Between tidbits of conversation, my mind went back to vaccinations at the pediatrician, wailing in my mother’s arms, secretly thinking that my doctor was a being sent from Hell. If I had the vocabulary then, I would’ve called her a crazy fucking bitch for wanting to poke me with some precautionary medicine. My mother had to distract me with the diamonds on her wedding ring long enough for the doctor to inject me. But today, the nurse and I were kindred in some way. There wasn’t much of a leap between the needler and the one being needled. We talked the whole time she drained the blood from me, which lasted about a minute.

       “I’m all set. You're free to go.” She said with a smile. I never caught this last nurse's name. Perhaps she was a third Rachel. I pictured them like three witches, the Rachels, in scrubs instead of capes, protecting women across the city from infections of the nether regions. “When you leave this room, just follow the yellow arrows to the exit.” They are good witches, of course, and I, their promiscuous Dorothy, going down the yellow brick road (masking-tape marked linoleum), toward the Emerald City (my mom’s 2011 Honda Odyssey parked out back) with my ruby slippers on (cotton underwear spotted with a few drops of red from when I inserted the swab too hard). 

       “Thank you. Have a good one,” I said, leaving the nurse in the exam room with my blood in her hands and my cracker crumbs at her feet. I said the same thing to the security guard when I passed him on my way out. The gusts of Boston air ushered me to my car, sitting in the empty lot behind Planned Parenthood. Now I just needed to wait for my results which would come in the next few days. After that, I wouldn’t have to wonder anymore until there were more men and with that, more fear. I felt calmer though, and confident in the fact that I did what I needed to do. I looked down into my bag to search for the car keys. My fly was still down. 

 

I didn’t want to tell my mom that I went to Planned Parenthood. It was an admission of my sex life without actually saying “I HAVE SEX MOM, I’M SORRY.” But I decided to tell her anyway after remembering I was still on her insurance and there was a good chance she would find out anyway. 

       “I went to Planned Parenthood last week,” I said as we walked to grab coffee.

       “Oh, you did?” she said. I tried to decipher the movements of her face but couldn’t tell if she was disappointed, uncomfortable, or proud. All three, maybe? 

       “I’m clean. I’m all good. And I didn’t cry when they took my blood,” I said, partially as a joke and partially for praise from my Mommy. 

       “Why didn’t you just get tested at your next gynecology appointment? You have an appointment next month.” She didn’t sound upset with me. She spoke to me like she always does. Like she’s speaking to her child. 

       “Oh,” I said, staring at the road in front of me. “I didn’t think of that.”