This past Tuesday was Medical Maintenance Day here at Eat Our Brains – for two of us, at least. Madeleine underwent a Required Procedure and received de Good Drugs as a reward . . . while I had my first head-to-toe, no-stone-left-unturned physical exam in a decade. My physician, Dr. K., had been nagging me to have one for two years, and I finally caved.

Those of you who know me well know that I don’t like to be known well. So for me to submit to a physical is roughly equivalent to a normal, well-adjusted person stripping naked and rolling in cactus. Then showering with rubbing alcohol. Then rolling in cactus again.

You might think that this bad attitude would put a strain on my poor, hapless physician, but you’d be wrong. Dr. K. – or, as I often refer to him, the Evil Dr. K. – is unflappable. Grumbles, whines, baleful glares, and brandished Bowie knives do not deter him. He does his job, and he does it thoroughly. Damn the torpedoes. Now cough.

He and his Evil Assistant hammered my knees, shone bright lights in my face, stuck needles in my arm, drained my blood, asked rudely personal questions, and taped hundreds of sensors all over my chest only to rip them off (along with similar-sized patches of skin and hair) ten seconds later.

Then Dr. K. banished his assistant from the exam room and gave me a thin smile.

“Everyone always wishes I’d forget this next part,” he said, putting on his batting gloves. “But I have to do it. I’m sorry. Turn around, please. You can brace yourself against the table.”

At least he’d apologized in advance. As I began to turn, I saw him open a cabinet and take out the Bat. It was just a bit shorter than a regulation Louisville Slugger, and it was made of heavy gray plastic. It had holes drilled up and down its length, no doubt to increase the speed of Dr. K.’s swing.

I gripped the edge of the padded exam table and held on tight as the Evil Dr. K. began to whomp me about the head, neck, and shoulders. He worked his way down from there and spent a little extra time on the kidney area. A few times, he hit me hard enough that I almost nosedived into the white paper covering the table.

“Now I need you to alter your stance a tad,” Dr. K. said, stepping back and taking a few extra practice swings. The Bat whistled.

“How so?” I gasped.

“Have you seen Casino Royale?”

I had.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, Dr. K. gave me a few final raps on my ankles and said, “Okay, that should do it. You can get dressed now.”

Words cannot express my relief. I was going to be bruised and sore the next day, but at least the ordeal was over.

I reached for my shirt . . . and Dr. K. said, “Oops, wait a minute. Not so fast.”

I gave him one of my baleful glares. Again, to no effect.

“I forgot to turn on the sonograph,” Dr. K. said, gesturing at the convex pods at the ceiling corners. “My bad.”

So I re-assumed the position, and the Evil Dr. K. began beating me with the Bat again. This time – for variety, I guess – he started at my ankles and finished at my ears.

I was just starting to see black-and-red spots when he stopped. Small wonder that it had been so many years since I’d done this. But at least this time the Bat had been plastic.

Dr. K. had sonograms in hand by the time I was dressed. “Things mostly look pretty good,” he said. “You’re displaying some slight thickening of the skull, but that’s normal for a man your age. Nothing much to be done about it. So otherwise, just try to eat less and exercise more.”

My fingers twitched near the hilt of my Bowie knife. “That’s it? After being poked, prodded, stabbed, and pummeled, that’s what I get? ‘Eat less and exercise more?’”

Dr. K. glanced at the sonograms again.

“Well, if it makes you feel any better,” he said, “your prostate looks great.”

But strangely, that didn’t make me feel as much better as you might think.