A "Something's Just Wrong With This" Kind of Monday

A couple of oddball things happened while visiting my doctor’s office this morning. I had to stop in to have blood drawn after a night and early morning of fasting.

While sitting in the waiting room facing a window to the parking lot, I noticed a car pull up. The female driver had nosed into the spot, giving me a bird’s eye view of her and the entire front seat. There we were – face to face separated only by about ten feet of space and two crystal clear panes of glass.

Next time you pull up to a building and find yourself facing a window of any sort – be warned that someone might be looking out at you.

I sat and watched as this woman adjusted her bra strap, not once, but twice, pulling the collar of her sweater completely over the shoulder while tugging at the clasp. I was a little bit embarrassed; kept looking away then back again to see if she had noticed me. Surely she had by now. Guess again.

Suddenly she boosted herself up toward the rear view mirror as if to apply lipstick or something. Well, it ended up being the “something.” She started popping zits all about her face, and I might add, with reckless abandon! To avoid being overly graphic, I’ll stop here and leave out the part that deals with fingers and tissues.

This woman, probably in her mid- to late-thirties, would have been so completely humiliated had she known she was taking care of such business less than ten feet from a total stranger. Short of going outside and telling her, there was nothing much I could do.

Much to my horror, she walked into the office and stepped up to the receptionist’s desk. I had such an uneasy feeling about seeing her standing there; like I already knew way more about this woman than I ever cared to. I knew the moment she sat down near me and looked out that window and into her own car, she would have realized she just put on quite the show for me. Fortunately, I was called inside just before that happened.

The second odd thing that happened was just a strange response from the nurse who drew my blood. I had asked her what I thought to be a rather intelligent question. It occurred to me that when we have to fast for blood work, how is it that they will get an accurate or “true” reading since we don’t normally go about without food or drink in our tummies. Are you with me so far?

In other words … I had to fast since midnight – no food or drink. For the sake of not knowing a more medical term for it … let’s just say my blood was then “pure.” They get their readings and document the results. Great.

The problem is, these results are not realistic by any stretch of the imagination. During the course of any day, I’ve eaten at least a couple of meals, drank lots of fluids and munched a few snacks. I have shat and I have replenished. Drawing blood at some point DURING this type of routine would produce a more typical result, no?

So it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t ask about this. Without hesitation, this was the nurse’s response, “No no... your blood doesn't really change during your daily routine... it's not like food makes a big difference... now if you were to drink a large glass of Orange juice an hour before... THAT could change your sugar levels."

My mind went completely blank at that point. This happens to me when someone says something so completely stupid that it simply cannot register in my gray matter. The thing you do NOT want to say to a caffeine-starved, food-hungry, 10-hour faster is that “it’s not like food makes a big difference.” Why then couldn’t you have just told me not to eat or drink anything ONE hour before, instead of ten?

Driving home from the doctor’s office, I turned on the radio hoping to hear anything at all that might make more sense than what was dumped into my head just minutes earlier in that chair.

The deejay was talking about the sun index today (as though there was one), and said, “So folks if you’re already traveling to the beach, don’t forget to pack your sun screen or leave it home today because you probably won’t need it... and if you left it home, you should think about doing that anyway.”

There was so much wrong with that sentence that I turned the radio off, lit a cigarette and hoped against hope that this wasn’t what it feels like at the onset of insanity.


“Those who dance were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music” Angela Monet