As The Fabled PC, my long-suffering Scottish spouse likes to point
out, I have the mind of a child. It’s true; I keep it in a jar
under the bed.
My sense of humor, she says, sometimes ought to
have its license revoked. This last pronouncement came as a
result of some small misbehavior on my part that took place in the
local hospital.
Seems that I needed to have knee surgery. Ouch. And the deal was that since this was a scheduled affair,
I was to give my own blood for the future operation. Side
Note: I have since discovered by talking with Scooter (My-son-the-doctor)
that they don’t need this blood for these operations. They use
it for the beautiful rose bushes outside on the hospital grounds. But this information is to remain strictly between us folks. Back to the story.
So I go on down to the hospital, and go through
all the depositions, mortgages, interviews, and entrail divinings
that hospital minions delight in inflicting upon us lowly civilians
to prepare for this blood donation. Having been fingerprinted
and DNA’d, retinal-scanned, and my genealogy confirmed for seven generations,
they passed me to the Second Stage. That’s the one where
they have ten chairs that were left over from a movie about Mengele,
all empty, with tubes and syringes and other scary things hanging
from them. Of course, even though there is nobody else giving
blood, there has to be a fifteen minute wait (to build up your blood
pressure, I can only assume). Finally, in comes Dr. Quasimodo
with a gasoline can and a razor to get some blood from my quivering
alabaster bod.
A palsied gnome with thick, clumsy fingers began
to probe various parts of my arm with a section of epoxied garden
hose, eventually causing a serious flow to ensue. Kewl. Some minutes later, having donated my own gore, they gave me one of
those apple juice containers with the foil lid.
You know the
kind: they hand them out in airplanes. No matter how carefully
you attempt to peel back the foil, the pressurized juice is guaranteed
to erupt, so that ALL the passengers can have the experience of dumping
apple juice all over themselves.
I'm a fairly large and healthy
guy, so I really don't need a sugar hit after giving a pint of blood...
that’s why I decided to put the unopened container in my pocket, so
I could open it later when I had my wetsuit on.
I got up to leave,
when a particularly acerbic lady in a nurse’s outfit suddenly brayed
at me: "Hey! You... if that's yer name! You ain't going nowhere."
It
wasn’t easy, Gentle Reader to withhold the entire series of comments
that this straight line handed me, but I was noble. I looked
over at her. Her nametag identified her as Miss Demeanor. I
was obviously something that annoyed her (I was a patient, albeit
only temporary, and ambulatory at that – a double annoyance to her.)
She sighed and snorted at the same instant – an accomplishment
which I found impressive – and imperiously beckoned me to the foot
of her throne.
"Here, take this and go give me a sample."
“This”
was one of those little plastic cups (you know the ones) and she pointed
a peremptory finger at the potty door. Ever obedient as always. (Ah, an interruption – The Fabled PC is reading this as I relate it,
and her comment on that “obedient” quote has just disproved the adage
that two positives cannot make a negative: Regarding it, she
says, “Yeah, right!”
Getting back to the story, I walked into
the aforementioned potty… and the Devil bit me right on the butt.
I
took out the container of apple juice, ripped off the top, and poured
the contents into the specimen cup. The empty container went
into the convenient wastebasket thoughtfully provided by the hospital
housekeeping folks.
When I came out of the potty proudly waving
my brimming specimen cup, Miss Demeanor got her PMS in high gear.
"You
are supposed to leave it in there on the shelf, not bring it out here!"
This, with a rolling of the eyes and a sigh that Hillary Rodham would
die for.
Sooo... I sez very politely: "Dang, Miss Demeanor, ma'am,
I'm powerful sorry I didn't read your mind, and therefore have apparently
made it so this here sample is contaminated. Tell you what: I’ll just recycle it for you!”
With a nice flourish, I upended
the specimen cup and drank it down.
Miss Demeanor went ballistic. Absolutely nuts.
She went echoing down the hallway, calling for
Security, doctors, and probably the cotton-picking FBI.
A lot
of folks immediately gathered round, so I quickly went into the potty,
retrieved the empty apple juice container and showed it to them with
my charming boyish smile. A couple of the doctors began laughing
so hard they spotted.
When Miss Demeanor came back, EVERYBODY
was laughing (and several were pointing at HER, with tears in their
eyes).
She was the only one what didn't see the humor of the
situation.