Blood

I went to the hospital today to do some tests. I like doing tests in Dutch hospitals. Every time it's a little adventure: cards, stickers, corridor maze, well tuned procedures and fancy equipment. A nice woman at the tests registration desk gave me a little plastic container for the urine. This suddenly reminded me of a documentary I saw some years ago about a photographer whose choice of topics was rather controversial. For example there was a photo of a naked woman holding a penis of a horse. There was a scene where the artist discussed with a model what she should eat to get her poop soft so it would get out slowly and look like a sausage, so he could make good photographs of that. Yeah, the guy is definitely a pervert. What was his name? The photo's look good, though. Anyway, in the same documentary they showed how they shot a photo of a woman peeing in a man's mouth. She was standing there with a man laying underneath with his mouth wide open and the photographer asked: "How are your aiming skills?" "My aiming skills are fine", said the woman confidently. Well, as far as urine tests are concerned, my aiming skills are fine too. When I submitted my container at the registration desk I made a mental note: drink more water!

The guy who took my blood was very friendly. He put a needle in my arm and said: "You haven't felt much, have you?" I agreed I'd felt no more than a little prick. "You did it well. It looks like you've done it before." - I complimented the guy. "That too" - he said. "But you also have very good veins." Somehow this felt like a compliment too.




The needle left a little mark on my arm -->