Torturing for Kicks Since 2006

There is nothing like the pediatrician asking for a routine blood-test to freak a mother out. There is nothing worse than holding down your kid while some stranger pokes and prods and baby screams with rage-filled eyes and cries and does the kreplock-lipkey-frowny-face. No fun. No fun at all, which is why we procrastinated nearly one month before we finally took Archer in for his nine-month bloodwork at the local Quest Diagnostics.

Correct me if I'm wrong and maybe it's just Los Angeles but the scariest, most unattractive women work in the "blood test" world. (I have yet to meet a man-diagnostic-person.) They spit when they speak. They're mean and sweaty and messy and their nails are always long with little rhinestone flowers, chipping at the edges. They smell like hamburger meat and so far I have yet to walk into a diagnostics office and been proven wrong.

When I was pregnant and suffering from hypertension I was tested almost daily. I was strapped up to machines and monitored and I had to drink the chalk drink and the glucose drink and get blood drawn and take it like a man. I was a perfect gentewoman all but once when the mannish blood-maiden literally leapt from behind her blood-stump of a reception desk and poured the remainder of my glucose drink down my throat because I had "thirty seconds before my time was up. I'm serious, lady. If you don't drink up I'm going to have to pour the damn thing down your throat." I was livid. I was petrified. I told the bitch to step back. After leaving the diagnostic dungeon I made a few calls. "Take care of it," I said. But nothing worked. The bitch was there the next time and I sweetly asked to come back when she wasn't working. I was THAT upset. I hated her stinking guts.

Beware the scary, hairy bitches for they drag their haggard selves from the depths of every diagnostic space in the greater LA area with fat hands and pooorly-manicured claws. One would think that in Beverly Hills, a half block from Kitson and The Ivy and every other US weekly, paparazzi hot spot, shit would be classy, or at the least, kinda sorta nice.

Ha! Not so much.

We walked inside, signed Archer in and waited, fuzzy-radio blasting in the background, receptionist arguing with her boyfriend on the phone. "No you didn't..."

The nurse/blood-maiden stuck her neck around the corner. Finally it was our turn.

Gulp.

"Archer!"

We followed the NBM to the plastic chair in the windowless cubicle.

"Sit down, mom. Now hold your child down."

I held Archer on my knee and bounced him up and down. "Okay. We're ready."

"Stop bouncing. Dad? Hold his hands so I can take these three vials of blood."

So we did. Archer's cries turned into screams. Screams turned into hysterics and just when we thought we couldn't take it anymore, twitching to hold back tears. "It's okay, babe. It's almost over..." the woman pulled her needle from Archer's vien. The three vials were full and the NBM thanked us kindly. She rubbed Archer's head and gave him a kissy face.


"Poor baby. Your parents done torture you, didn't they?"

"Um.... heeeellllooo? We didn't torture him."

"Well that's what your son thinks, trust me."

"Well, it's probably because torturing our son is a great hobby of ours."

Silence.

Silence.

Thanks Nurse/blood maiden. We will back to torture the baby as soon as possible and I can't wait! Wooooooo! Blooooooooooooood!


GGC