I got a band-aid inside my left elbow.

Kind of disappointed. It's just the cloth, Anglo-flesh coloured kind. Was kinda hopin' for A Tazmanian Devil. Taz is cool.

A Pikachu would have been nice, too.

This AM was the blood draw for our upcoming "Wellness" fair or what ever they call it. So the wife and I fasted for the 12 hours, and hustled in a little before she had to get to work. Not soon enough, though. She was late.

'Course they knew where she was, as a co-worker was three ahead in the line, and she said their boss just left.

Now, this is sponsored and paid for by the government that pays both our salaries, so you would think we would have been in their database.

We weren't.

Doesn't help when the gal types in GGROUSE. But even when I corrected that error, I wasn't in there.

Seeing the three medical folks sucking blood out of people made me think of vamps. I pointed out to the wife that if I had that job, I would dress the part.

According to the little grey-haired blood-sucking lady, who seemed most adept at what she was doing, they wouldn't let her. She has tried.

We anticipated difficulties, and got them. See, the wife has almost non-existant veins, with thin walls and blood pressure usually so low that her hoses are laying almost flat. Hard to stick a needle into. Usually they go clear through.

Really discovered this problem when she was pregnant. Took nurses forever to find a vein, leaving hemorrhaging little holes under the skin all over the place. Bruises the size of a softball just from a needle poke.

Have been tempted to ask if they had a drilling permit for all their wildcat wells.

Chuck and his wife were in line behind us. Ever the businessman, he let us know Men in Black II would open Wednesday. And he also wanted to check to make sure I had been monitoring the antelope fawns this year, and that I had been seeing the same thing he was.

I passed the test.

And got to hear how lousy the walleye fishing has been, mainly because of all the trout in the lake.

As the second tube of hydrogenating lubricant was pumping out of my arm, they shuffled the wife to another table, pressing the cotton swab against her right arm.

The first gal had failed. And since she knows the wife, and her difficult veins, she is quitting while she is ahead. The wife will be delivered to the grey-haired vamp for a professional extraction.

Things were going fine for me until I leaned over to make some smart remark to the wife, and then suddenly the pain alarms went off from the needle, deep inside my arm.

At first I thought it was because I had shifted, and berated myself for being so stupid. But now I'm not so sure.

You see, the gal sucking blood from my arm is also a friend of the wife's. And I am now wondering if she didn't give that needle just a subtle twist, in support of the wife. But she wouldn't do that, would she? She's a professional, after all.

Would she?