My Drug Test

One of the conditions of employment at where I worked (summer job 1994) is that you have to prove you're not a criminal by taking a drug test. I didn't eat for 12 hours before the test. That wasn't anything special, really, the appointment was early in the morning so I just had to remember not to snack after dinner. So I drove bright and early to a small brick building in Tonawanda. Basically a little doctor's office, where they gave me a perfunctory physical.

First they drew some blood with a big hollow needle that was surprisingly sharp. It barely hurt at all going in, but the nurse managed to lose the vein she'd been working with, which meant she wasn't able to fill the little tube she was supposed to fill after the big one. She gave me the option of either letting them fill the big one, or just not worrying about it, and letting the lab come back and complain if there wasn't enough blood to test. I was a little queasy by this point. It's kind of unsettling to have a stick in your arm squirting out blood, so I told her I'd rather just leave what I'd given.

After a wait in the waiting room, I got to go upstairs for my drug test. A pretty nurse who looked to be about 35 or so ran me through the full spectrum of tests on the eye-test machine; she was kind of willing for me to cheat (she gave me a couple chances on the ones that I missed) because the point is to be able to write down that I passed some minimum level; you have to be better than 20/40 in both eyes. My left eye is at 20/40, and it appears I'll finally be getting that pair of glasses.

Then I took my long-awaited urine test. It wasn't as bad as I'd expected; I had thought that I was going to have to urinate with her watching; I figured that would either give me bashful kidney or would make me crack all kinds of mean jokes. She had me empty my pockets, go into the bathroom with a little plastic cup that had a fill line, and close the door. She waited outside while I whizzed in the thing, and then I had to flush with her watching. She tested the temperature right away, and then I had to watch her take the cup in and seal it in a tamper-resistant package.

After we'd done this little ritual, it seemed like we had somehow shared something; a strange little bit of intimacy. She told me that she'd done the urine tests for the Buffalo Bills, and that those tests were conducted with her watching. "They didn't have anything special." she said, as though I'd asked her whether a professional football team has any kind of manliness advantage over the rest of us blokes. True, it had crossed my mind.

She said some of them were polite about it, and some of them made nasty remarks. She couldn't give back as well as she got because she had to stay professional. Then I felt kind of sorry for her. She said she's kind of tired of nursing.