Roads are wide open today… there’s nothing in the way of a smooth ride this morning. Not so much for Idyllwild… they’re battling an epic fire, the town and many surrounding areas have been evacuated, and roads are closed. If you’ve ever been to Idyllwild, you’ll understand why it has sometimes been called Crestline’s sister city… the place looks and feels just like Crestline. The only real difference is that OUR name is much easier to spell.
Again, though, for OUR area, there’s nothing to report regarding highway conditions. So… completely random story time!
I’m not a timid guy… given the choice of fight or flight, most of the time, I’ll take the fight. Give me bears, or fire, or cemeteries at midnight, or rattlesnakes, or more taxes, or even hatchet- wielding tweakers trying to steal my neighbor’s tree, and I won’t shrink away. However, there is one thing that will turn me into a quivering pool of pansy: Needles. Oh, and poop… I admitted that to you yesterday. And eye worms… those give me the willies, just thinking about them. Okay, so there are a few things that I am a’ scared of, but the main one is needles. Dang, I just hate needles.
While in basic training, a blood drive was being promoted on post. While I am not, not, NOT a fan of needles (I may have hinted at this), I still felt that this was a worthy cause, so I agreed to let ‘em take some of my blood.
This particular blood drive was set up with a long row of tables… nurse phlebotomists (incidentally, modern blood draws are no longer taken from your bottom, but the name still stuck, for some reason) sat on one side, and soldiers sat on the other side. I took a seat across from one nurse, and surrendered my arm to her.
Now, I don’t like to watch… I have no interest whatsoever in watching a foreign object pierce my skin, and enter my body. Nope. Not gonna watch that. I’m just barely willing to let the stabbing happen… but I am not willing to WATCH it happen. So, I had my head turned to the side, in order to avoid being witness this horrible breach of my hide.
I waited for the little prick. However, as I waited, with cold sweat, pale face, and an elevated heart rate, I heard somebody hollering. “Ow, ow, owww, oWWW!!! Stop! STOP! It HUUUUUUURTS!!!”
Whoever it was got louder and louder… and sounded like a little girl. HA! I was pretty smug about that, seeing that at least ONE person in the room was a wimpier pansy than I was! I might be afraid of needles, and I might even be a little queasy, but at least I wasn’t the one carrying on like a little girl!
As I smugged away, marveling, greatly satisfied about another person’s wimpiness (obviously promoting me to at least one step ABOVE, “namby- pamby pantywaist cream- puff chicken sissy- boy of the room”), my basking was interrupted by another little prick. This was not the needle: This was my drill sergeant: “Private!!! What in the actual HELL are you doing?!?!? What is wrong with YOU???” The guy might have been little, but he was loud (I can testify, very few drill sergeants are meek, patient and quiet… betcha never knew that, huh?). Plus, sometimes he smacked people on the head when they were not achieving the standards required of warriors… yep, I got smacked, along with the yelling- at- me thing.
Suddenly, there was a lot of attention focused on me. I turned back to look at my designated nurse, and discovered that her hand was being squeezed, severely, putting her in a lot of pain… squeezed by the soldier sitting across from her (yes, me). See, I was so focused on not focusing on the needle, that I was tensing up, to include squeezing that poor woman’s hand nearly to the point of breaking delicate little nurse hand bones. She was the one who was hollering in pain… due to ME being… a pansy.
I was again demoted to the scaredy- boy of the room.
Fortunately for me, a couple of the fellas ended up passing out a few minutes later, so I was able to proudly claim, once again, to not be the very least brave man in that room.
(Random tip: If/ when you donate, at least as a civilian, they’ll give you a little sticker to place on your chest, which will say something like, “Be nice to me… I gave blood today!” Don’t put this on your shirt yet, though! Save it… keep it in the car. If a cop ever pulls you over, as you lean over to the glove box for your paperwork, slap that thing on… then, as you accept your verbal warning, thank Kdog for the great advice!)
I still donate, on occasion, but now they give me one of those little squeezy- things that do not holler or experience injury. That works out a lot better for everybody.