A Little Bathroom Story

I went to the clinic today to take a drug test for possible employment with a large retailer. There just seems to be something wrong with the casualness of the process with the folks that work there. It just doesn’t seem to be any kind of big deal that they happen to be handling human waste. Hell, it took me a while before I could deal with my own daughters diaper when she was born. Of course it quickly got to the point of nothing being to it but this was my daughter not some schlep off the street that I’ve never seen before.

Walking in I was reminded of the place I use to sell my plasma at when I was 18 and needed, ironically enough, drug money. Wearing jeans and a tee shirt with my ever present flip-flops, I was easily the best dressed person there. Says something about the state of the unemployed now doesn’t it.

When I first got there I went up to the desk and, after being asked what I was there for, gave them the paperwork my perspective employer gave me. They had me sign in and said it would be a few minutes. A couple minutes later the very same person that I had just spoken to called my name. I went up to the counter and he said. “What can I do for you today Kevin”? I just smiled until I realized he was serious. I explained what was up and that I had already given him my paperwork. Some lady then told me to go around the corner and into the second room and when I got there she was already there to meet me.

She told me to empty my pockets and put everything in this box that was on the door. After doing what I was told I realized that there was nobody checking to see if I really emptied them. She asked if I had done it and I said yes. I could have easily had someone else’s pee in my pocket. Ewwwww. She then asked if I could pee? I laughed. Hell, at my age there’s hardly a time when I don’t have to go. So she gave me a little plastic vial and, with her plastic gloves on, put a little mark about 1/5 of the way up the cup and told me to put that amount in it.

So I went in to do my thing and stopped at what I thought was around the line she had drawn. Now, I don’t know about you but stopping mid-stream is not an easy thing to accomplish. So I stopped with a bit of a struggle and lifted the cup to see if I had made it to the line. I started thinking at this point that I didn’t have plastic gloves on. How come she needed them and I didn’t? Anyway, I saw that I didn’t make it even close to the line and had to repeat the process. After another two checks I finally did it and took the vial out to my friend outside the door.

After handing her the vial, she had me fill out some form and she set the specimen on the table. She started telling me about some of the adventures she’s had while having this job and was in the middle of saying that there was a time that someone had filled the cup all the way to the top. She was saying that it had spilled a little when he had set it down and then she reached over to show me how far the guy had filled it to and hit mine and knocked it over before putting the top on it. Oh joy.

Thankfully I didn’t get any on me and she apologized over and over again. She then asked me if it was at all possible that I could go again. Are you kidding me?