There’s an old saying that the more things change, the more they remain the same. This week, that lesson was learned once again.

A lady I know took a few days off work for personal stuff, such as her annual checkups. For guys, it’s pretty much a one-shot deal: bend-and-reach. Turn your head to the side and cough. Say ahhhh. Okay, you’re going to feel a little poke and pressure … whoa, doc! For women, though, it’s a little more complicated, I’m told. There’s the regular doctor, the “lower end” doctor, the “top end” doctor, and then some techs to help all the doctors, and possibly others, too, I guess, for people, and in this case, women, with other health conditions.

Anyway, this woman is off getting her annual mammogram. For that act alone, she gets her two brownie points, an ice cream cone, and a high five for doing the pancake shuffle in the radiology department of the local hospital in the name of preserving life and breasts.

While getting her mammogram, the technician explained that all the women now get to feel like strippers, whether they want to or not. The woman said, “Excuse me?”

“Oh, yeah. Didn’t the doctor tell you? They’ve changed the way we do a mammogram,” the X-ray technician explained. “We place a pasty over each nipple before the mammogram. That way there’s a clear point of reference for the radiologist. Sometimes nipples are tucked under a breast; sometimes they are up really high, especially on gals who have implants; and sometimes, well, they just hang there, mostly due to gravity. Just so the radiologist knows where all the essential anatomical points of reference are at, we have started using pasties.”

After a laugh, the tech placed the left pasty, did the mammogram, then came back, get everything set up for the mammogram on the woman’s right breast, went back to her safe zone, then started laughing and scurried back over to the mammography machine.

“Oops! I forgot to put this pasty on! This is our first full week of using the pasties,” the tech explained. “I wake up with nightmares that I’ll forget to take one off of a 90-year-old nun one day and she’ll end up in the E.R. and they’ll find her with pasties and wonder what’s going on in the convent!”

So, tell that special lady in your life to go get her pasties. No, she doesn’t get to keep them, but if you really want a set for home, order them online.