Today, I had my annual exam. To be more specific, my annual female exam.

I haven't had a steady gynecologist in years. Too much moving around, procrastinating and lack of sexual activity. Let's face it - when you're not having sex, and not in pressing need of some form of birth control, you don't think much about OB GYN matters.

Still, something reminded me the other day that I had not seen one for a while. I chose a doctor off our provider list, the only one who practiced in the zip code in which I live, and in which I intended to live over the course of several such annual exams. Good enough.

She was a pleasant woman. A bit too folksy for my taste. The actual exam was delayed in favor of chitchat, a getting-to-know-you sit down with the doc that I found an annoying waste of time.

This came after I filled out the paperwork, submitted a urine sample, was ushered to a room, waited 15 minutes and answered the questions of an intern nurse whose supervisor silently observed. By this time, I was more than ready to have the transaction completed.

But this was not to be.

"Here's your gown," the nurse told me. "But don't put it on yet. First, the doctor wants to talk to you."

I waited another 10 minutes, and the smiling doctor, who appeared to be about my age, breezed into the room. I was, by this time, sitting in the chair, a decidedly more dignified posture than sitting on the exam table, legs swinging childlike from its edge.

Dr. Gibson pulled up a chair close to mine. She did not ask me if I had any special concerns, how often or if I was sexually active or if my periods were troublesome. Those questions came later, during the exam. Instead, she asked me how I was.

"What do you do for a living?" she asked, her expression reflecting great interest when I told her marketing.

I knew this was feigned. Marketing on its face, since it encompasses such a wide array of career possibilities, is not fascinating. She asked who my employer was and, once again, raised her eyebrows and smiled as though impressed.

"And what does that involve?"

My smile was thin, though I tried my hardest to make it genuine. All I wanted was to have her in my body and out, as quickly as possible.

I suppose this is a modern-day trend, an attempt to make the doctor seem more human and to ease the patient. But doctors like this one see so many patients, so many of them on only an annual basis, that her interest could not possibly have been genuine. Nor did it have to be.

"Let's drop the pretense. Here is what we are to one another," I longed to say. "You: doctor. Me: Vagina. Any questions?"

I wanted to hear her inquiring not about my career and family life, but to my cervix.

Barring that, the only sound I desired was the snap of latex as she donned her gloves and got down to business.

"I see you have a little boy," she persisted. "Oh! Not so little really."

"No," I said. "No. He's not."

Either the conversation was completed to her satisfaction or she picked up on my decided lack of enthusiasm - or concluded I was PMSing - because Dr. Gipson finally gave me the order for which I'd been waiting.

"Put on your gown and I'll be right back."

With a relief, I shrugged out of my own clothes and into the paper-thin cotton gown.

When she returned, the doc was ready to work.

Partway through the exam, with her hand in a space only penises were meant to go, she paused.

"Hmm," she said. "You're so thin. I can't tell if this is an ovary or a fibroid."

Her brow furrowed. She rooted around some more. It did not hurt, but it was not exactly pleasant either. It seemed to me an ovary and a fibroid should be distinctly different in feel, but since I had never explored innards, and she did so regularly, who was I to say?

"Put your hand here, on your stomach," she said, directing me to a spot just west of my belly button. "Press right there. You feel that."

Her hand pushed up from inside me, into the palm of the hand that rested on my tummy.

"That bump ... feel it?"

This was weird indeed. But I thought perhaps, just maybe, I felt something. I said yes, of course, I certainly did. I'd have said almost anything to speed this stage of the exam along.

"If it's a fibroid, it's not at a worrisome stage," she said. "We'll just check it again next year."

Finally, I was free to sit up and, immediately, cross my legs.

The doctor again gave me her Girl-Scout-mom-next-door smile. "Everything looks great," she said.

Almost against my will, sarcastic thoughts swirled through my mind. Was that a compliment? Could it be that my female parts were better and healthier looking than those of other women? I tried to think of an appropriate response, but none came.

Dr. Gibson washed her hands and wrote me a prescription for a mammogram. Then she was gone, and I was relieved.

I hope my new gynecologist's technique does not gain popularity. She is not my enemy, but neither is she my friend. An annual exam is business. Plain and simple.

My advice to dear Dr. Gibson and her well-meaning colleagues: Save the chitchat. Do the job at hand. Do it well, and do it fast.

And pass that along to the staff at the breast center. STAT.