The Rectal Exam of David Attenborough

Day three of my return to the laminating factory as a machine operator and I'm about ready to be done. Never have I endured such boredom, and never have I seen the clock move with such sloth. And when I say the term sloth, I want you to say it in your head like David Attenborough would: sloth. Mm, I'm writing this from my phone which doesn't allow me to put the macron over the "o" which would change the pronunciation from sloth, to sloth. See, it still didn't work. But this should do the trick.

That last paragraph is a perfect example of what I write when my brain isn't being creative. Nothing about a laminating machine brings out the best in me, nor does it challenge me in any way. I load a machine, set it up, and watch it run. All day. I can't believe I did this for a year without launching myself off of a cliff while driving to work.

I'm not suicidal, and there are no cliffs in the area of A.M.G. Laminating over which I could perform such a maneuver, so don't get any ideas, it was just a thought.

My birthday came and went, and I don't feel any older. I did make the connection that, in two more years, I will have to get my prostate examined. Or maybe my colon, probably whichever is more intrusive of the two. Then my mind carried that vision even farther with a picture of a Doctor putting a finger in my butt, and me promptly having an orgasm and making a mess of the examinating table. I like to think that if that happens, the Doctor will feel embarrassed and forego any medical expenses normally incurred with such a procedure. And to be even more graphic, my mind is currently showing me David Attenborough being fingered by a Doctor while saying his version of the word sloth, over and over.

See, that's what I think about while I'm laminating paper. I have completely wasted this post, and your time. I will write something with more substance after work, when I go to the coffee shop before my meeting tonight. See, I just made this post about recovery!

7

I can tell you right from the start that this is going to be a short post. I woke up later than usual (8:00am) and on my usual brainstorming ride over to the coffee shop, my mind was quiet. Aside from the thoughts of all I needed to accomplish today, I couldn’t think of one solid theme or idea that I could turn into 700 words. This paragraph that I’ve wasted consists of only 75. I’ve got it, I will create six more 100 word paragraphs, completely unrelated, or possibly identical. Who knows. Six more words I have to type.

My mother hosted my 38^th annual birthday party on Friday night. It wasn’t my actual birthday, which is tomorrow, but it was nice to get a good portion of the family together and actually be able to celebrate any part of my life. I’ll be turning 38, which is closer to 40 than I’d prefer, but I don’t often think I look or act my age, so I have that going for me. Back to the party: we had lasagna, hummus, various crackers and snacks, and of course cake. Afterwards I went to the gym with my cousin to burn.

Speaking of the gym, I seem to go through phases when it comes to wanting to go. With the new job, being on my feet so much, it’s incredibly difficult to want to run, which I have really cut down to about once per week. Once is still more than I like running, but not what I should be doing to feel healthy. I love being able to eat as much as I want of anything I see, and running made that possible. I still lift nearly every day, but that just doesn’t quite have the same effect as cardio.

One time, Mike Tambornino and I tried to blow up the cliff that overhangs the Mississippi river at a place we referred to simply as “The Monument” which is at the west most end of Summit Avenue in St. Paul. His father was a pyrotechnics expert, who put on shows all over the state like the Taste of Minnesota, and he stored large amounts of high-explosives in his attic. We made a bomb by putting black powder and magnesium into a coffee can and using a couple rolls of duct tape to pressurize it. It was loud, but didn’t work.

The team that I played for yesterday in a softball tournament did not do very well. All we had to do was win one to stay alive. All we couldn’t do was lose the first two, which we did. The first game was a perfect example of how you should not play the game. We scored zero points, and the collaborative effort of the whole defense was one big error. The second game was close; a real pitcher’s duel. We went into extra innings tied 2-2, whereupon we fell apart and gave up five runs, forever sealing our fate. Word.

Tomorrow I go back to the laminating factory for the first time in nearly three weeks. It’s only for a few days. I’m actually pretty grateful that I have that to fall back on, because my schedule is pretty spotty at Levy for the next month or so. Without the laminating, I wouldn’t be able to pay my bills and surely I would end up homeless or selling my body for science or even worse, selling a kidney on the black market. Are you still reading this nonsense? I apologize, but you will have to endure just one more story.

I was unique as a drinker. On more than a few occasions, I was able to drink past blackout, come around to sanity, and continue on drinking throughout the night and into day, at which point I could keep drinking to a steady buzz. Yep, I could stay up all night on alcohol, without the use of cocaine or meth. More often than not, it would get me in some sort of trouble including something that has aptly been named “The Vincident” because of the gravity of the situation I alone created while on an all-nighter. But that’s another story.

Sharp

My general fear of needles was overridden by the fear of having them in my house, that’s the only reason I could think of that I would be holding so many of them. They were in drawers, cupboards, and in the hands of addicts who were plunging their misery deep within their veins. A number of them appeared to be covered in something sticky which I determined to be battery acid, but when I woke up, I had the thought that it might be heroin. My twisted sheets revealed a sinister contortion of movements while my brain was portraying a vision of my biggest fear, needles.

That’s how I spent the last few moments of slumber this morning. I planned to write a whole post in dream sequence, but the memories faded within minutes, and I thought of something even more terrifying, reality.

Just after I started using meth for the second period in my life, I had offered up my home as a temporary shelter for two women who were both in need of a place to stay. They were both users and they both had children. One of them, I knew, was a needle user. I explained to her my almost irrational fear of spikes, and said that under no circumstances would the use of them be tolerated under my roof. Meth addicts are always very responsible, and follow the rules, so I knew I had nothing to fear.

It was within a week that I spotted the first evidence. I found the bright orange cap to a syringe sitting right on top of the trash can, and I had a minor panic attack because I couldn’t see the rest of it. There was nobody at home at the time, so I spent the morning looking around for further indication of their use, but found none.

Time marched on, and I started using more, and gradually became accustomed to finding the occasional wrapper or discarded plastic covers and what-not. I guess we make a lot of exceptions as addicts, and I figured since nobody was getting hurt, it was ok.

These two women brought me nothing but trouble. One was a drug dealer who used none of her profit to help out with bills. The other, a terribly abusive mother who did nothing all day and left her child alone in a high-chair in front of the T.V. while she sat in her room getting high. The latter would bring over equally awful friends who would also contribute nothing, and add to the general chaos that was becoming a flop house. In a way, I was trapped. I had to allow all of this because I had no other source at the time for my drugs; if I kicked them out, I wouldn’t be able to get high anymore. Slowly I became withdrawn from the scene by hiding in my room. I was a prisoner in my own home.

I awoke one morning to find that I was once again alone in my huge apartment in Fountain. I walked up and down the hall enjoying the quiet. I walked into the bathroom and on the second step, I felt something enter the arch of my foot with great precision. It didn’t really hurt, but it was stuck so I turned on the light for further diagnosis. When I saw the syringe sticking out of the bottom of my foot, I gasped. My stomach was turning over in an effort to purge only bile, as I hadn’t eaten for days. I was so afraid I didn’t even want to pull it out for fear of touching it. I sat down on the toilet and tears welled up in my eyes. I wasn’t sad, I was angry and full of hate, and I wanted so badly to muster the courage to pull that fucking thing out of the depths of the softest part of my flesh. And I did it, and I threw it against the wall as blood began to trickle down to the floor. Bile crept up as far as it could without breaking the levee, and I swallowed it back. It was over, but now there were new fears.

Who had left a needle in the middle of the floor? Did they have A.I.D.S.? Do I have A.I.D.S.? Fuck.

That’s what I remember from the incident, I may have blocked the rest out, or simply forgotten. I’ve gone over my word limit which may also account for the abrupt ending. I don’t have A.I.D.S.

How to Pee

Finally, a day of rest. It feels as if I haven’t stopped moving for the past two weeks. I’ve had one day off over the past eight days, and worked 11 of the last 14 overall. I suppose that’s just over normal, but I hustle when I’m working and sometimes don’t realize how tired I am until I get home and crawl into bed. Now I get to enjoy three days off in a row, followed by a few days at the laminating factory before I return to the kitchen.

This morning I had the pleasure of taking my first pee test for Ramsey County Corrections. It used to be simple. The probation officers and the drug testing facility were in the same place, the Spruce Tree Center. I would go see my agent, they would tell me whether or not I had to take a test, and I would go down the hall, or I wouldn’t. Now testing is done by a private company, on the other end of town. I received a call yesterday while I was on my way to work from my agent who said I had until the end of day Friday (today) to go pee. The odd hours of the testing site lined up with my rotating shifts at the Xcel Center, and I went down before I came to Nina’s to write this post.

Giving a urine sample for the purpose of drug testing can be rather awkward. By nature, people don’t want to be caught using drugs when they shouldn’t be, so there are a number of safety features in play. When I arrived they asked me for my identification, and we filled out some simple paperwork. I took a seat and waited for a man to finish reading a newspaper article, and he asked me to step into the bathroom and rinse off my hands. I’m not sure how many products are out there that are designed to trick the testing process, but one of them must be something you put on your hands and add somehow to the urine stream. I looked down to my left and saw a full-length mirror just to the right of the toilet which would put my genitals in direct view of the tester who would stand right behind me.

I flashed back to a different time when I found out how easy (or maybe difficult in this particular case, as I never saw her again) it was to fake a clean test if you happened to be a female, and I wondered how many guys came into this room high on something and thought they were going to trick the man who was now standing behind me. Is there a thing that a guy can put inside his urethra to make sober pee? I don’t get high or use any drugs, but in the back of my mind, I always feel like there’s a chance that something will go horribly wrong, and my test will come up positive, even though it’s never happened. I couldn’t imagine coming into this confined room full of mirrors with a bladder full of meth-water expecting anything other than catastrophe.

I was in my head and didn't even notice that the process has continued on without my attention. Before I knew it I had filled the receptacle to the appropriate level, and we made the hand-off. We sealed it and both agreed that it would not be tampered with, without an obvious blemish on the seal that I had signed with my initials. I washed my hands a second time, and exited the bathroom, and then the building.

And that is how you properly pass a drug test.