When you’re five years old, and it’s your first time at the doctor’s office, the last thing you expect is for the doctor to whip out a giant needle of death and plunge it deep into the pulsing blue artery of your arm. They all smile at you, those scheming nurses and your backstabbing mother and the pitiless doctor. They all act so nice and sweet, and all the while they’re plotting nefarious plans in the back of their twisted minds.

The nurse sits you up on that annoyingly crinkly white-paper examination table and reassures you. Your mother holds your hand. And then, what are the words that we all hear from the doctor?

“Don’t worry, it’ll only pinch.”

Ha! Pinch? Pinch?! I beg to differ. Why not substitute “pinch” with “cattle-prod” or “branding iron” or “cat o’ nine tails?”

There’s only one thing to do when that burning needle of agony pierces your skin: attack the doctor. Of course then all hell breaks loose.

Your mother is apologizing (Apologizing?! Who was the one who got stabbed with the giant needle of death?) to the doctor for your unforgiveable behavior. They call the evil nurse with the fuzzy unibrow back in. Obviously you have no control over your body. It must be rabies or schizophrenia or some other mild form of mental breakdown to cause such a cute, sweet little girl to violently attack her doctor. So what do they do? They hold you down to the examination table and then stab the needle into the pulsing blue artery in your arm.

And what do you get for your submissive docility, your wracking agony, your dire suffering?

A sticker.

Oh, thank you so much.

How about next time we give the kid the needle and see if the doctors don't run screaming.