Every year the department sends us all for a physical. It's a nice benefit, really--every year I get a free physical and I get to see how much I've deteriorated in the previous year. Then, when I return to work, I can compare my deterioration, depression, weight gain and lack of conditioning to that of my coworkers who've just returned from their physicals. In management we call this "benchmarking."
Anyway, yesterday I went to get my blood drawn and get my TB test. The actual physical is in a couple of days. I was met by a nice young lab assistant who ushered me into an exam room. We made some pleasant small talk while she got her stuff ready; I found out she's going to the same community college as my daughter, for instance, and that her boyfriend is working toward a graduate degree in human resource management. She had me lie down--a first--because they now have a policy that patients lie down for blood draws so they don't fall out.
While I'm lying there our conversation continues and we get on to the topic of shift work and sleep habits. And she tells me how she didn't get enough sleep last night because of a bad dream she had. And then she tells me about the dream:
In the dream her father, from whom she's estranged, even though she kind of has to stay in touch with him because she misses seeing her little brother, takes her car. That is, she gets home and finds that her new car is gone (she just purchased a new car in real life.) When she goes to look for her car she finds out her father is the one who stole her car, and he's laughing about it. AND HE'S WEARING CLOWN MAKEUP.
And then she said "this vein looks good" and put the needle in.
