Husbands, Wives, & Pee

Tuesday was my last day before returning to school. I thought I would celebrate my last day of vacation by getting my blood work done (I get this done every few months due to my disease). I stopped eating Monday evening (I had to fast, you know) and when I woke up bleary-eyed on Tuesday, I called the doctor's office to see if I could stop by to get the work done.

Apparently you are supposed to have an appointment. And apparently I did have an appointment. And apparently I missed it.

In my defense, I didn't get the reminder call that the secretary kept mentioning. Not once have I missed an appointment. Also, I didn't know I had to have an appointment just for the tests. I thought I could just walk in and get the work done.

Anyway, they said to hurry in and they could do it.

So I threw on some clean clothes and drove there. The nice thing about living in a huge city is that something, almost everything, usually ends up being close by to your dwelling. In this instance, the doctor's office was only a five minute drive.

When I got there and after they drained me of all my blood, the following conversation occurred:

Nurse: I'm going to need you to pee in the cup.
Me: Silence
Nurse: Here you go. Hands the cup to me.
Me: Um, I really don't have to go. I just woke up.
Nurse: How can you not have to go? You knew you'd need to do this test.
Me: I wouldn't have made it here without having a tinkle accident. I always pee first thing in the morning. I should mention that I tend to over-share. If you haven't realized it yet. I guess I could try. How much do you need?
Nurse: Grabs a cup of pee from her office. About this much.
Me: Holy crap. Giggling ensues. Is that someone's pee?
Nurse: Gives me an eye roll. I feel sorry for your husband.

Now at this point, I have to stop. Mostly because my head rotated around a full 360 and the scene in my head played out in a very ugly way.

First of all,who says that? To someone they don't know? I understand that she thought she was being funny, but you know what? No.

Yes, he does put up with a lot. Tears - happy ones, sad ones, tired ones, frustrated ones, I cry a bunch. I over-work. I over-share. I demand a lot. I can be immature. I can be a curmudgeon. He deals with my disease. He helps me through flare-ups and a variety of doctor visits.

But you know what? We chose each other. I have plenty of positive characteristics as well. And he has plenty of negative things with which I deal, along with all his positives (like dealing with the aforementioned negatives of mine). I think we are lucky to have each other. Neither of us is the winner. Or the loser. Or sometimes we're both.

I'm reminded of something Robin Williams says when he is remembering his wife in the movie Good Will Hunting. The things that he misses about her. "The little idiosyncrasies that only I knew about. That's what made her my wife. Oh, and she had the goods on me, too, she knew all my little peccadillos. People call these things imperfections, but they're not, aw, that's the good stuff. And then we get to choose who we let in to our weird little worlds. You're not perfect, sport. And let me save you the suspense. This girl you met, she isn't perfect either. But the question is: whether or not you're perfect for each other. That's the whole deal." 

So me giggling at someone's pee doesn't in any way make me a bad "wife". In fact, if I didn't laugh at silly things, I wouldn't be the girl with which Jeremiah fell in love. And I start to feel sorry for her, because it's a sad life if you can't be silly in front of your husband/boyfriend/significant other. 

And as I think that this woman needs a lesson in tact and social skills and I'm ready to get in her face and say something highly inappropriate, I change my mind.

I have her fill the cup out for me, I take it, break it open (thereby rendering it useless), stand there pretending to think,  and say, "Nope. I guess I don't have to go."

I toss the pee cup in the trash and walk out.

They'll get my pee when I'm good and ready to share it.

And let's think before we open our mouths and insult strangers, shall we?