today I peed in a cup, dropped it
I had to go get pee tested today.
I’ve never had to do that before–yet another marker on the road to adulthood, I guess. The testing center was tucked behind what I think may be the only K-Mart still operational in southern Minnesota. I was greeted by a woman who may or may not have had any kind of medical certification, and prompted for my papers and photo ID, which I provided. From there, I was ushered into the back through two saloon doors, and told that I could hang my hat on the rack behind me. The woman then told me to take everything out of my pocket and place it into the black lock box on the counter in front of me. Not for the first time, it felt like I was going to prison. From there, the woman showed me into a tiny bathroom, and stood there while I washed my hands with some meager foamy soap–I’ve never been self conscious about the way I wash my hands until then. Then she took the soap away. Seriously. She took the soap away. And you know that means that some jerk actually contaminated their sample with it, either accidentally, or thinking that, I dunno, the soap would kill the pot residue. She then handed me a little plastic beaker after marking a little black line on it
“Don’t run any water, don’t flush the toilet, and put the sample in the white basket next to the faucet when you’re done.”
So then I stood in the bathroom alone, staring at the receptacle. As I said, I’ve never peed in a cup before, and was curious about the fluid physics involved, wondering if there would be any splashing, misting, or other moistening. I unzipped, tried to angle the cup in such a way as to avoid peeing on myself, and went. I filled what I judged to be the correct amount, pinched off, and held it up to the light. Not quite. Still had a little to go. So I tried to reposition to the cup, and promptly dropped the container, with my urine sample, into the toilet.
“Oh,” I said. “Uh.”
Not knowing what else to do, I carefully fished the container out of the toilet and knocked on the door, which is a weird thing to feel like you need to do when you’re in the bathroom. I told the woman what had happened, and she sort of tilted her head and made a face. She then asked me if I was, “still able to produce.”
Meaning, did I still have to pee? Yea, I did.
She brought the soap back so I could wash my hands again and left again. This time I managed to fill a new beaker up to the line without losing my grip. I put the beaker in the aforementioned basket, zipped up, and opened the door. I was then told that I could use the key to get my belongings out of the lock box. I reclaimed my hat, and filled out some forms.
My urine is now off to some lab somewhere, and hopefully the tuna fish I ate for lunch won’t show up as heroine or anything.
