"An Inglorious Wee-Peat"

A portion of this blog post was written late at night.

It was time for my annual check-up, which I had dallyingly pushed back to “annual plus four months.”

Today was the “Blood Test.”  Two weeks later, I would return for the rest of my physical, and a report on the “Blood Test” results. 

Which I dread.

You come in feeling in tip-top condition, and the “Blood Test” – an inescapable X-ray of your actual wellbeing, confidently proclaim,

“Not so fast.”

I quiver at the finality of the “Blood Test.”  The blood technicians know you better than you do.  And they squeal to your doctor!

And today’s the Big Day.  At eleven A.M.  Throughout the morning, I try to deliberately distract myself by focusing on my blog post.   But my anxiety is palpable.  I have already, um…”passed water” four times.

Finally, it is Zero Hour.  (How can you tell you are officially a grownup?  You make your own doctors’ appointments.  And you drive to them alone.)

I arrive at the doctor’s office, sign in, and while I’m waiting, I reorder certain prescribed daily (and sometimes, twice day) supplements that, based on the readings of my previous “Blood Tests”, my doctor has instructed me to take.  (Supplements he also sells out of his office.  Should I be appreciative or suspicious?)

When my name is called, I get up like a brave little soldier (with only the tiniest accompanying whimper, executed, I confess, somewhat for effect), and, after being buzzed through the door, I walk in to “Face the Music.”  (Which I unequivocally interpret as “Meeting my Fate.”  I know that, because in my head, the immortal Tex Ritter, singer of the High Noon theme song, is warbling,

“I do not know what Fate awaits me

I only know I must be bra-a-a-ave….”

I ask for and am granted the “Butterfly Needle”, which is smaller and hurts substantially less going in.  (And coming out.)  I redirect my attention from the fact that there is a pointy object penetrating my brain by chatting with Nurse Melissa, whom I did not recognize because of her new, severely short haircut.

“Were you drunk?” I amusingly kid.

“No, I contributed it to wigs for cancer patients.”

Talk about an embarrassing faux pas.  Exacerbated by the fact that the woman I had faux pah-ed was, at that very moment, manipulating a needle in my arm.

Finally, I get through it.  I am about to leave, when Nurse Melissa says,

“Oh, and I need a urine sample.”

Do you recall at all my mentioning that I had…

Earlier in the morning…

Four times?

The cistern...

was empty.

I accept the little plastic cup with my name written on it and, with as little confidence of success as I have ever had in my life, I disappear into the lavatory.

Well…

To summarize an almost fifteen-minute ordeal, which included manipulating sink-faucet drippage to stimulate performance… let’s just say, I sent a letter to my bladder and it did not answer back.

Sheepishly, I emerge from the lavatory with a “pee-cup” as dry as when I had originally taken it in.  I ask if I can possibly skip this part of the physical just this once, promising to do it twice for my next physical.

“No,” explained Nurse Melissa patiently.  “He’s going to ask where it is.”

The agreement we struck was that I would leave for lunch, and return shortly thereafter, fully primed and ready to perform.

During lunch at a nearby restaurant, along with my Quinoa Burger, I consume three cups of coffee, and two tall glasses of water.

I was definitely ready to go. 

I returned to the doctor’s office.

And on my second attempt…

Mission…

Overwhelmingly…

Accomplished.

(And the good news was I was so fast, I got in under the “Grace Period”, so I did not have to pay twice for parking for a single urinartorial exercise.)

A happy ending.  (Hopefully portending a happy “Blood Test” result.)

Though not perfectly so. 

Do you recall that I drank three cups of coffee and two tall glasses of water?

Well…

Responding to the inexorable Rules of Nature…

The floodgates had irreversibly been opened.   

Involuntarily, I had effectuated a urinatorial “one-eighty”, going from “I can’t” to “I have to all the time.”  After achieving its specific objective, to my dismay and discomfort, it was now “Full Steam Ahead!”

I had afternoon errands to run.  There are no Men’s Rooms in the Dry Cleaners.  Nor at the Automatic Teller Machine.

“I would like to make a deposit.”

“Not that kind.”

Then later, sitting in my bodywork guy’s (AKA: the “Horse Doctor”, as he works on both people and horses) Waiting Room, with its five-foot high simulated trickling waterfall suspended on the wall, and no key to the “facilities” hanging on a big ring so you don’t accidentally take it away with you in sight…

I’ll tell you, the rest of the day was no picnic.

And it did not entirely end there.

Do you recall my mentioning up top that a portion of this blog post was written late at night? 

What can I tell you? 

I had ignominiously failed once.  I had to make dead certain I would not be a “dry-cupper” again.

And now…

Due, I am certain, to my egregious overreaction…

I can’t sleep!

Man!  This guy can make a story out of anything!

That doesn’t mean he has to.

I have a feeling it does!