What activity is it that has most women wistfully wishing they were instead flat out in a dental chair experiencing the joys of rinse and spit? Is there something that would set you to thinking that a play date with 65 vomiting toddlers with the runs sounds like more fun that what you're doing at that moment?

Yep. That would be the Pap smear.

As one of the groovier aspects of aging, hit 70 and you can say bye-bye to the speculum and slide show ... assuming your Paps up until then have been normal ... how's that for making 70 an age to look forward to? But up until you're 69, every two or three years should see you making friends with those cold steel stirrups.

And here's some Pap Test Trivia ... Did you know that the Pap is called the Pap because it's named after the guy who came up with the test? Yep. Dr. George Papanicolaou. Nice of them to shorten it, heh? Think this will ever come up on Jeopardy?

No fun at all, it's nonetheless our solemn duty to contort ourselves for the exam regularly, as along with the rest of us that needs to stay healthy for a very long time if we're to see our kids graduate from college, get married, discover a cure for the common cold, win the Pulitzer and email from Mars, our girly parts need a good gander to make sure we're in the pink ... so to speak.

With cervical cancer symptom-free until it's advanced beyond where anyone wants to see it, ignoring the calendar is a bad idea, as this story from the UK illustrates.

A busy mom didn't make her Pap appointment a high enough priority and ended up having major surgery, culminating in a radical hysterectomy, a vaginectomy and the removal of six lymph nodes from around the cervix to test for the spread of the disease.

Even if you've had a total hysterectomy, it may be necessary to be checked for abnormal changes on that two-to-three-year schedule.

According to the Mayo Clinic, no matter how old or young you are, certain factors could demand yearly screening.

These risk factors include:

• A history of sexual activity as a teenager, especially if you had more than one sex partner

• Multiple sex partners now

• A partner who began sexual activity at an early age or who had many previous sexual partners

• A history of a sexually transmitted disease

• A family history of cervical cancer

• A diagnosis of cervical cancer or a Pap smear that showed precancerous cells

• Infection with human papillomavirus (HPV)

• Tobacco use

• Exposure to diethylstilbestrol (DES) before birth

• HIV infection

• Weakened immune system due to such factors as an organ transplant, chemotherapy or chronic corticosteroid use

The Pap test has been around for more than fifty years, and since it's inception cervical cancer has dropped from the number one leading cause of cancer deaths for women to number 15, with about 3,700 women each year dying from the disease ... a figure that could drop even more if every woman took the test when recommended.

The whole thing with cervical cancer is catching it early, With a cure rate as high as 90% when discovered in the early stages, it's vital to keep ahead of it with regular Paps.

So, do yourself and your family a favor ... no matter how busy you may be with life, kids, work, whatever ... get thee to a gyne, hop into those stirrups, relax, and think of root canals.