A Very Long Day

My day started with a knocking on my door by my mother at 8:20 AM (better known as, "40 minutes before I set my alarm for"). The very unexpected wake-up call was provoked by my mom having a massive dizzy-spell and being unable to drive into town to take care of our vacationing friends' dogs. I sluggishly exited my bed and began to become more and more conscious to the world with each step I took. In about 10 minutes I was as awake as I would ever be given the circumstances, so I drove my mom to our friends house so she could let the dogs out (yes, apparently my mother is the answer to that age old question) and feed them. After our work (really her's, I just sat on their couch until she was done) there was over, we came back home and I then sat on our couch until my mom was ready to go down to a travel clinic in Palm Springs (so I could get my vaccinations for my trip to Ethiopia). I knew I'd be getting a few shots, but I didn't really figure I would get 4 shots at once (not all simultaneously, that would be crazy). I was fine for the drive back home and everything, but about a half an hour after getting back home, my arms got sore (like somebody had just given me a dead-arm in each arm). Even now, about 11 hours after I received my shots, my arms are a little bit tender.

The previous paragraph was mainly peripheral information (sorry you already read that, but it wasn't that bad of a read, was it?), what I really want to share with you all is my experience down at the travel clinic. Now, you are all probably thinking, "Whats so great about a travel clinic? It's just doctors and stuff, right?" To answer your first question, I will later, so just be patient (kind of ironic word choice, "patient," since its about my visit to a travel clinic). To answer your second question, you couldn't be any more wrong. This clinic was crazy (imagine a "Nacho Libre" accent for the word "crazy" because thats just how "crazy" it was). It was basically a WWII museum; there were old WWII magazine covers, old war bond ads, old knick-knacks (no paddy-whacks however) with WWII anti-Axis propaganda, and even old newspapers with different headlines from the war. There was a big, plasma-screen TV playing the movie "Patton" on it, this place was tricked-out indeed (there was even an old air-plane propeller from the war that said, and I kid you not, "Keep 'em Flyin' and Japs Keep on Dyin'," who came up with this stuff?).

After filling out those stupid forms and signing/initialing all of those papers that make them not liable for my death (who reads all of those things? Its possible that I may have signed over all my future children to them, but I don't read those things, so I guess we'll find out in the event that I ever do have a child), I was called into the back rooms where all of the treatment takes place. I had to do the usual: height, weight, blood-pressure, and heart-rate. I did what I always do when having my heart-rate and blood-pressure taken, and that is I try to relax my entire body and breathe slowly (the last thing I want to do is find out I'm on the fast-track to a heart-attack). Apparently my little trick is very effective, because my heart-rate was 60 and my blood-pressure was 100/74. The nurse performing these tests, a male nurse (in PALM SPRINGS!!!), asked me if I worked out, this kind of caught me off guard. I was thinking he was trying to hit on me. I didn't want to say more than I had to in order to answer that question, so I replied with a very unenthusiastic "yes." At about the same time that I was regretting my decision to wear a V-neck t-shirt, he said he was asking because my readings were "below-average" or something like that ( I wasn't really paying attention at that point because I was still feeling a little uncomfortable). Anyways, he gave me my shots and kept explaining over and over (and over and over and over) again what else I needed to do to get ready for my trip (he also used the phrase, "you know what I'm saying?" repeatedly... I didn't start counting right away, but I still counted 7 times... and that was just in his conversation with my mom about what he had already explained to me several times). In spite of all that happened once my turn came up, that place was alright in my book.