Ditching the sample: a carnival ride through the tunnel of mortification

You complained of too much information (squeamish lot, ain’t ya?), so I’ll spare you the "how we got the specimen" story. Even so, if you were repulsed by the last story of my self-effacement, stop now.

I warn you, though, you’ll be missing out on the cool bonus quiz, below!

1. The Window

First of all, you have to be at the hospital lab by 10 a.m. and I’m no early riser. I had hoped for some secret back door action, maybe with a screens like in a church confessional from a Bing Crosby movie. Instead, I found just a locked door and a phone to use for service. When I’d summoned a tech, she jerked open the door, took one look at my shuffling sorry ass and announced loudly in a woody tone "SEMEN?"

Zoinkering hell! What happened to a little discretion in the medical profession?

Anyway, with the cracking voice of a pre-teen, I affirmed her suspicion  and followed her inside, where the eyes of four female and bored cytologists looked up with interest from their work of measuring cyclical friction. I could almost hear them bickering over who was getting this tool’s glop to count. It wasn’t a happy mental argument.

2. The Computer

So the "order" for the damn test wasn’t in her computer, which seemed to be of an early 1990s vintage. (I could hear little "boink-bang-boom-boom" noises coming from inside.)  As she debugged the hard drive I suggested that the paper lab order I was holding might grease the wheels. But no, the tech had to make some calls and I had to fill out yet another form. As I did this, she extracted the vial from the three layers of plastic bag, paper bag, and biohazard bag where I’d ensconced it, the better to deny its existence.

Oh oh oh oh oh oh my god! I thought. Holy jeebus, that’s the last thing I want to see right now. I averted my eyes but, sadly, met hers. There was a distinctly disappointed cast to her features. I don’t think I’m getting any "good volume" smiley faces on my report card.

3. The Escape

Finally I got out of the hospital building, doing my best not to make any more eye contact as I left. I was pretty sure that everyone in the place — that intern, the elderly information desk volunteer, the dude dripping blood on his way to the emergency room — was smirking at me. "Oh, we know why you were here, that’s for sure."

At last I came to a stop at the coffee stand out front, but bolted when the lady in front of me asked me to give her the sugar. I dashed to the car and wallowed briefly in self-pity before resuming normal functioning as an upright citizen.

Bonus Quiz!

Can you find the 18 (count em’!) sexual innuendos hidden within this post? And no, as far as I know, "blogging" is not a euphemism for anything.

in goofiness,pregnancy for dads ·