Last week was a bad week for me – I lost a lot of blood. I managed to get through two thirds of the summer bite-free, and then I had to go and spoil it by forgetting the bug spray at an outdoor evening work function. I went straight from work, so I was wearing jeans and a shirt with sleeves to my elbows, but that wasn’t enough protection. Oh no – I ended up with FIVE mosquito bites. Where? On my feet! And one on my pinky finger. I hate mosquitoes. As if mosquito bites weren’t bad enough, I had to have blood drawn the very next day. Not for one test, no. I was having a whole bunch of tests redone, so I went to the place (The lab? It’s not really a lab. They send the blood off to a lab. And it’s not a doctor’s office. Whatever. The place.), and the guy (the phlebotomist – that’s a great job title) looked at the order with the LONG list of tests (they were testing for 13 things, I think) and pulled seven tubes out of the rack. SEVEN tubes. That’s SEVEN VIALS of my blood he had to get out of my arm. And I was fasting! AND I had to go to work when he was done. Inhuman, that’s what this was. Inhumane, maybe. Because I’m human. Not an alien, not a robot. Hm. Maybe that’s what they were testing for. Maybe I’m NOT human. Mom, Dad, is that ice storm birth story just a cover for how you REALLY got me? I’ll have to check those results carefully.