What du you want from me? Blood?

So – my boss decided that it was a good idea to send us all for a health check-up type thing.

I don’t like doctors. Nothing personal, if I’m bleding out or if my appendix bursts or something like that I definitely want them around. Other than that, not so much.

So – anyway – I get worked over by two charming ladies, they ask the standard twenty questions, you know: Any history of diabetes in the family? Heart problems? Depression? Have trouble sleeping?

Uh, the last one there was kind of hard to get into without mentioning Tyler Durden, but I did my level best. And after that they hook you up to some machines, measure your heart rate, all that. The sucktion cup noise of them hooking that one up was kind of funny. And I managed not to leer at the twenty-something nurse who asked me to take my clothes off. I’m a lamb.

Anyway – this is all good and fine, right up to the point where she tries to draw blood.

-Which arm? she asks.
I’ve already rolled up my left sleeve.

I used to be a blood donor back in the day so I recognize a rookie when I see one. Hell, given enough incentive even I can find a vein if I have to.

Not so my nurse.

She poked and prodded in my left arm first which is where the blood donor people used to prefer taking my blood. It’s an interesting sensation when someone gropes around for a vein with a needle. And fails to find one. Twice.

We switched arm after that.

Eventually she hit the main line, but not until she had reduced me to pin cushion status. I was well stabbed and kind of resigned about it at that stage.

In search of a pleasant day to round off the day after that I watched what can best be described as a very bad vampire movie. Yeah, there’s a sliding scale there. Some are good – others not so much. Actually this one was terrible. The vamps didn’t sparkle in the sunshine, but they sure as hell weren’t very scary either. Morality tales have their inherent flaws and yeah, well, I was out for blood and didn’t even get it.

Sort of like that nurse of mine.

ROL

It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt… serial killer style

I had a reasonably hard day of work behind me and a head full of cotton, so I figured I’d watch some TV, ‘cause that’s about as efficient in making my headspace go all nice and blank as staring into a fire.

Turns out sometimes not so much.

Here’s what I wound up watching – a documentary about homelessness complete with interviews of the sixteen year old daughter who’s mother is working as a prostitute. The girl saying “the worst thing isn’t that I know she’s doing it, the worst thing is she tells me about it”. A documentary about serial killers from the perspective of the criminologists doing active research on guys like Elmer Wayne Henley and a deeply disturbing piece of social commentary.

I think the part that freaked me out about the psychopaths was probably the German serial killer who had been let out after having served ten years (he had racked up a body count in the double digits) and who was now volunteering as a Santa at a local Christmas market. His priest thought it was wonderful how people can change… Five minutes in to the interview my hackles are all the way up already and then the guy starts talking about how he’s clairvoyant and can see peoples auras and sometimes he can see the ones who are ready to die. It’s okay, though, he loves working with little children. The joy on their faces makes him happy.

Yeah. Alright.

What we all know about psychopaths … well, one of the things we should all know, though maybe I have a head start here, I’ve studied some criminology and I’ve made a special study of guys like this, is that they don’t actually change. They can’t be cured. They are also, by their very nature, manipulative and charming and can pretty much sell ice to an Eskimo. It’s actually in the profile.

So – I think I should maybe go back to controlled viewing for a while, ‘cause I got a little too much human nature heaped over me there in a very short space of time.

And my headspace wound up filled with stuff that was the very opposite of nice and blank.

Damn it.

ROL

I just wanna be a cowboy, baby…

When you’re halfway asleep and your brain is running on in whatever track it happens to be stuck on you get some weird stuff sometimes.

My thoughts were shaped pretty much like this “…I got to get up and saddle the Apploosa, go round the property see how the fence posts are doing… Storm might have knocked  some of them down… don’t want the livestock to get out… hate when that happens… wonder if there’s any coffee yet…”

I was ready to pull on my Tony Llamas and amble out into the kitchen, drink my coffee from a chipped enamel mug and then mosey on off to the barn to saddle up and head out.

When I peeled my eyes all the way open I realised that – hey, you know what? I’m actually not a ranch hand.

Well. Fuck.

I coul have understood it if I had been watching old cowboy movies, or reading cowboy stories, or even just … I don’t know, heard Kid Rock on the radio or something, but no.

Man, I wonder what the hell I was dreaming.

Also, pretty much par for the course, note that I didn’t dream of long lazy days in Texas heat, drinking sweet tea on the porch or anything, no of course not, I was dreaming of getting up and going to work.

Imm’a thinkin’ that’s some typical stuff right there. Just sayin’.

Tip of the cowboy hat to y’all.

ROL