My two most memorable rectal temperatures happened when I was four or five and within two hours of each other.
My mom (also my pediatrician) was out of town and I was left with a 12 year old babysitter and her mom. Of course I got sick.
My babysitter's mom was at work so my mom was called for advice.
Mom told Janet (not her real name) to take me across the street to our house and take my temperature. I loved her like a big sister so I gave her minimal fuss when she pulled my pants down and took my temperature, a rarity because just then because I was at the age were I thought I was too “big” to get my temperature in my butt.
What stands out now is that after Janet read the thermometer she did not pull my jeans back up. Instead she took them OFF and changed me into fresh underwear and elastic waist corduroys. I even remember the color. They were green. I am sure that mom had told her that if I had a fever to change me into those pants. They would be easier to pull down and up than futzing with zippers and buttons. It was providential for what was to come.
Knowing that my babysitter could not drive, mom told her to take me to a retired school nurse who lived a couple of doors down from the elementary school several blocks away. We walked the few blocks.
It was an old house with a side door down a long driveway. A very old woman answered the door. The door opened into a bedroom which was set up as an examination room similar to my mom's office rooms.
The nurse put me on the table, took my shirt, shoes and socks off and did the normal stuff. Ears, nose, throat and listen to chest. Then she went to a desk and wrote some things on a tablet. I was thinking: Okay. This is over.
Not by a longshot.
She came back to the table and instead of getting me dressed, she laid me back on the table and took my pants completely off. Now I was completely naked. I was starting to panic. “What are you going to do?” All she said was “Just relax” as she rolled me over on my stomach and went to the cabinets. I was sure I was getting a shot.
When she turned around she had the BIGGEST thermometer I had ever seen! It had a HUGE pear shaped bulb and was much larger than any my mom had ever taken my temperature with. I have since learned that it was likely from the teens or twenties. Thermometers were much bigger in those days.
I started yelling “Janet just took my temperature. Don't take it again!”
She came to the table, spead my buttocks and with me still complaining stuck this thing up my butt.
I waited until she turned her back and I pushed. The thermometer fell out with “clink”.
She came back, scooped me off the table, grabbed the thermometer and started shaking it like she wanted to kill it and me. She sat down in a chair, put me over her lap and stuck it back in. I pitched a fit. By now I was mad and crying at being handled so.
She had had enough. She took the thermometer out and stood me in front of her. “Little man, I have had enough of your foolishness. I am GOING to take your temperature whether you like it or not! Do you want a spanking AND your temperature or just your temperature? It is up to you." She waited.
“Just my temperature” I finally said.
When we left her house I was never so happy to get out of anywhere as I was that day. It was over. Or so I thought.
Janet had to take me back two days later for a followup.
The nurse told Janet “Wait in the front room in case we have a repeat of day before yesterday.”
After she closed the door she looked me in the eye. “Spanking and temperature or just temperature?”
I let her take my temperature without a fight that time.
Edit: I always was on the lookout for mom to put those green corduroy pants on me after that. In my mind thereafter, those pants=rectal temperature.
When they disappeared from my wardrobe, I was relieved.
50 something years later I wish I still had them!