Lull

It's been an odd day. I am so conditioned to keep any kind of hope thoroughly squashed down that I haven't even let myself think about tomorrow, much less anything beyond that.

The lab where I had my draw yesterday is in a medical building next to a hospital. Absolutely no parking except for the seven-dollars-per-twenty-minutes lot next to the ER. And of course the woman at the front desk of the lab was like a Coen brothers version of a receptionist: thick stubby older woman with a giant flattened bouffant and thick mad-scientist glasses. After I gave her my lab slip she went to the back of the office and stood with her back to me shredding documents for a good five minutes. I kept checking the clock, thinking of that parking total.

When she finally shuffled back to the desk and entered my information on the computer I figured we were almost done - there was nobody else waiting, so I assumed I was next. She was clattering away on her keyboard for a while, and nobody had come out of the back for a long time. It seemed weird, because most lab tests just need a quick vial of blood or a cheek swab or maybe some pee in a cup. It had been a half hour and nobody had come or gone. The receptionist had turned the back of her lopsided bouffant to me and was busy going through some mail. I began to wonder if the phlebotomist was out on a break.

Except, then the bouffant lady called my name and trudged around the side of the office to open the door for me, and suddenly it was she herself pulling on gloves and a mask and getting out the tubing and the vial. Her? The crazy toad-in-a-housecoat character? The receptionist lady was going to draw my blood? What?

I had to pay $21 for parking because I was there for almost an hour. And in the scope of an IVF cycle that's nothing, really. But the whole thing was so pointless and bizarre. Tomorrow I'm parking at the Rite-Aid and walking six blocks. And hoping that Toad Lady has the day off.