OHMYFUCKINGGODWHATTHEHELLISGOINGON?
Jun. 4th, 2004 06:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanI had my health checkup today. No, trust me. You WANT TO READ THIS.
The checkup involved walking to the city hall (and getting out of work an hour early in the process). Now, I'd heard all about having to strip topless for the chest x-ray, and I was ready for that.
Ha.
Ha ha.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. If I'd only known.
I show up at city hall and terrify the nurses by being present and white. They are slightly mollified when I speak and write Japanese, but still eye me suspiciously. I fill out my forms. The nurse takes them and gestures to a table with a bunch of dixie cups on it. "You can use one of those," she says. "And take care of it over there."
I'm a bit torqued because I'm the only person there she's not using keigo to, and yes, I've been using desu/masu-kei to her. So I'm not really paying attention to what she's trying to tell me.
She gestures. "Those cups there. Three or four centimeters should be enough."
I boggle. "What?"
But I'd heard correctly. So I take my dixie cup, go into the general use ground floor bathroom, and pee in it. Then I set it down on the counter while I wash my hands, trying to be nonchalant about the fact that people are walking in and out of the bathroom while my little cup of urine keeps me company at the sink.
I take it back to the reception desk, where the nurse sets it down on the reception table with the little drug wand drying atop it and preceeds to not know who my employer is. I pop out the alien registration card and explain that I'm an employee of the city and work at location X. Much discussion and tooth sucking ensues. Meanwhile, I try to be nonchalant about the fact that my little cup of urine is still keeping me (and everyone else visiting the city hall and registering at the front desk) company.
I'm then sent out to a bus, where I have to take off my shirt and bra in broad bus daylight for a chest x-ray. Because, you know, I'm terribly deviously good at hiding the fact that I have tuberculosis while I go about my daily activities.
I'm x-rayed and thankfully pop my clothes back on.
Then it's up to the eighth floor for an eye exam. Next I'm sent to a stall where my retinas are photographed, god knows why. I'm beginning to wonder why I'm the only one of my coworkers who's had to go through this. Because oddly enough, none of my coworkers from the office are present today, and all my friends got the chest x-ray at their respective places of employment, had their temperature taken, and that was all she wrote.
But that's not all.
I have my blood pressure taken. Then it's off to another room I divest myself of shoes and socks to get weighed and measured. Then I'm sent to another little cordoned off area where a bunch of topless women are chilling out. Yup. You guessed it - my top and bra come off again.
But it gets so much better, because I'm made to lie down on a table while electrodes are attached to my ankles, wrists, and breasts. Then I lie there for five minutes while the nurse does...something...before I'm told I can put my clothes back on.
(You think I'm lying, but I'm not. I only wish my imagination could come up with stuff like this.)
I head out of the room to have my heartbeat checked. The nurse (male this time) who's doing this little task is so freaked out he stares at the ceiling instead of at me, but still somehow manages to rub all over my breasts during the process.
Then it's on to have three vials of blood drawn. (I've been really, really, really bad about having blood drawn ever since the fuck up nurse at my bumblefuck hospital kept trying to draw my blood but only succeeded in poking about in my elbow. And when she finally did hit the vein, she dropped two of the vials on the ground and had to take more.)
So yeah, that was a nasty little surprise. We had to give three vials while sitting on a stool atop a cement floor, and I'm just imagining myself reliving my mother's accident (she fainted while giving blood in a similar situation. It fucked up her memory, her personality, and left her with no sense of smell or taste for three years).
But I manage to make it through that all right.
Then I'm off to the hearing test. My hearing turns out to be fine. I'd thought the worst was over.
But it only got better. Because for the final round...
You won't believe this.
No, seriously, you won't.
At some point within the next eleven days, I have to spread a small plastic mat my floor, take a shit on it, and then use a little plunger-brush-needle contraption to take a vertical core sample of the turd, which I must mail to city hall. Like I said, I couldn't make this shit up if I tried. (Also, what I'm supposed to do with the turd and the small plastic mat afterwards is anyone's guess. I might stick it in a shoebox and send it to city hall along with the sample. I believe this is commonly referred to as 'adding value.' But I digress). The nurses at that station kept repeating the instructions when I boggled at the as they explained this turn of events to me - even busted out little diagrams. I think they mistook my expression of severe disbelief for one of severe incomprehension.
So, yeah. Health check up. Yahoo!
That will be all.
The checkup involved walking to the city hall (and getting out of work an hour early in the process). Now, I'd heard all about having to strip topless for the chest x-ray, and I was ready for that.
Ha.
Ha ha.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. If I'd only known.
I show up at city hall and terrify the nurses by being present and white. They are slightly mollified when I speak and write Japanese, but still eye me suspiciously. I fill out my forms. The nurse takes them and gestures to a table with a bunch of dixie cups on it. "You can use one of those," she says. "And take care of it over there."
I'm a bit torqued because I'm the only person there she's not using keigo to, and yes, I've been using desu/masu-kei to her. So I'm not really paying attention to what she's trying to tell me.
She gestures. "Those cups there. Three or four centimeters should be enough."
I boggle. "What?"
But I'd heard correctly. So I take my dixie cup, go into the general use ground floor bathroom, and pee in it. Then I set it down on the counter while I wash my hands, trying to be nonchalant about the fact that people are walking in and out of the bathroom while my little cup of urine keeps me company at the sink.
I take it back to the reception desk, where the nurse sets it down on the reception table with the little drug wand drying atop it and preceeds to not know who my employer is. I pop out the alien registration card and explain that I'm an employee of the city and work at location X. Much discussion and tooth sucking ensues. Meanwhile, I try to be nonchalant about the fact that my little cup of urine is still keeping me (and everyone else visiting the city hall and registering at the front desk) company.
I'm then sent out to a bus, where I have to take off my shirt and bra in broad bus daylight for a chest x-ray. Because, you know, I'm terribly deviously good at hiding the fact that I have tuberculosis while I go about my daily activities.
I'm x-rayed and thankfully pop my clothes back on.
Then it's up to the eighth floor for an eye exam. Next I'm sent to a stall where my retinas are photographed, god knows why. I'm beginning to wonder why I'm the only one of my coworkers who's had to go through this. Because oddly enough, none of my coworkers from the office are present today, and all my friends got the chest x-ray at their respective places of employment, had their temperature taken, and that was all she wrote.
But that's not all.
I have my blood pressure taken. Then it's off to another room I divest myself of shoes and socks to get weighed and measured. Then I'm sent to another little cordoned off area where a bunch of topless women are chilling out. Yup. You guessed it - my top and bra come off again.
But it gets so much better, because I'm made to lie down on a table while electrodes are attached to my ankles, wrists, and breasts. Then I lie there for five minutes while the nurse does...something...before I'm told I can put my clothes back on.
(You think I'm lying, but I'm not. I only wish my imagination could come up with stuff like this.)
I head out of the room to have my heartbeat checked. The nurse (male this time) who's doing this little task is so freaked out he stares at the ceiling instead of at me, but still somehow manages to rub all over my breasts during the process.
Then it's on to have three vials of blood drawn. (I've been really, really, really bad about having blood drawn ever since the fuck up nurse at my bumblefuck hospital kept trying to draw my blood but only succeeded in poking about in my elbow. And when she finally did hit the vein, she dropped two of the vials on the ground and had to take more.)
So yeah, that was a nasty little surprise. We had to give three vials while sitting on a stool atop a cement floor, and I'm just imagining myself reliving my mother's accident (she fainted while giving blood in a similar situation. It fucked up her memory, her personality, and left her with no sense of smell or taste for three years).
But I manage to make it through that all right.
Then I'm off to the hearing test. My hearing turns out to be fine. I'd thought the worst was over.
But it only got better. Because for the final round...
You won't believe this.
No, seriously, you won't.
At some point within the next eleven days, I have to spread a small plastic mat my floor, take a shit on it, and then use a little plunger-brush-needle contraption to take a vertical core sample of the turd, which I must mail to city hall. Like I said, I couldn't make this shit up if I tried. (Also, what I'm supposed to do with the turd and the small plastic mat afterwards is anyone's guess. I might stick it in a shoebox and send it to city hall along with the sample. I believe this is commonly referred to as 'adding value.' But I digress). The nurses at that station kept repeating the instructions when I boggled at the as they explained this turn of events to me - even busted out little diagrams. I think they mistook my expression of severe disbelief for one of severe incomprehension.
So, yeah. Health check up. Yahoo!
That will be all.
