(from an unfinished essay I started months ago)
In "Pretty Woman," Julia Roberts plays a hooker who tells Richard Gere she has one restriction: "No kissing." Everyone has their "no kissing." Mine is being injected with radiated dye.
Which is a choice that, during a brief stint as a lab rat for hire (Have Vein, Will Travel), I came across often. The higher pay for these studies reminded me not of a great opportunity but hazard pay, and that's where I had to draw a courageous line: no radiation or radiation-related products, including "radiated cookies" and "Dr. Spock’s Radiated Fun Time Machine."
Radiated dye inspired a gruesome fantasy of Al Sharpton protesting outside the hospital I’m incapacitated in, shouting, "If the dye is harmless, why is he armless?" and "This is a nation, not a radiation." I have eaten more than my share of Twinkies as a child. Enough is enough.
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