Many people go into panic mode when they think of getting an MRI. To them, it’s like being stuck in a locked coffin with a jackhammer being piped in.

I have never had that problem. I like being enfolded in things. If I had been Cleopatra, I would have loved being rolled up in that rug and shipped special delivery to Julius Caesar. It was probably a little hot in there, but you can’t have everything. I just hope, for Cleo’s sake, that it was clean.

For me, the problem with MRIs is the boredom. Lying completely still with your eyes closed and loud mechanical noises being pumped into your ears is not terribly amusing after the first 10 seconds.

The one thing I can do is let my imagination run wild:

Ah! The Rejuvenation Machine! I shall be made young, strong and thin again, and I will be a SUPERHERO! I will call myself Magnetic Resonance Woman, and I will fight evil and nastiness wherever I find it, which means just about everywhere.

I will send criminals running for their lives, and they still won’t be able to get away from me. I will break the power of the criminal underworld. I will fly to the Middle East and, by force of my super personality, broker permanent peace and brotherhood among warring factions. I will be given the Nobel Peace Prize. I will write books and people will buy them, loads and loads of them.

Those noises are the rejuvenation rays being shot into my body! NICE noises! I love all of you! I love everybody! Just keep shooting those rays into me. The more the better. Magnetic Resonance Woman will be on her way!

“Ms. Minicozzi.” It’s the voice of one of the technicians, and it breaks into my dream like an ax. Now I know what Walter Mitty felt like.

“Yes?”

“We’re bringing you out now, and we’re going to inject you with the dye for the second part of the test, okay?”

“Will it make my urine come out blue or something?”

“No. It’s not that kind of dye.”

So they shoot me with the dye, I adjust one of the earplugs so the noises won’t break my eardrum, close my eyes and put my hands in the right positions again, and let them slide me back in.

I am no longer Magnetic Resonance Woman in the making. I am Queen Neferanankateeta of Egypt. I am lying in a tomb, buried alive by my cruel husband, Pharaoh Jerkit, who caught me with the great love of my life, Jared the Hebrew. I lie here waiting for Jared to come and rescue me, so that we can run away to wherever he came from and live happily ever after, having passionate, primal sex as only he can. First, he will have to break into this tomb, unwrap me from these silly strips of cloth and carry me away.

“Oh Jared, Jared, how I long for your touch, your piercing eyes, your incredibly strong arms around me, for your … ooh! Ooh! OOH! Oh! Again! Again! Mmmmmm, that is so GOOD!”

“Okay, Ms. Minicozzi, we’re finished now,” says the technician.

Damn! She couldn’t even wait for me to finish my fantasy!

“Great! I’m ready to get out of here.”

Jared will have to wait for another time.