Nothing like a slew of extensive physicals from the State Department to make me feel like a pinched and prodded hunk of fruit in the supermarket (or, if you will, a roll of Charmin à la Mr. Whipple). In order to guarantee that I am ABSOLUTELY healthy and able to go ANYWHERE, I’ve spent the last two weeks making multiple trips to the doctor, the clinic where the x-ray machine is, the allergist, and everywhere in between.

Several of those trips could have been avoided, however, if only the doctor had remembered to actually call for every freakin’ blood test that the physical asked for. But no, just when the bruise almost clears and I’ve already ripped that little cotton ball off my arm (plus a few arm hairs attached to the tape that I previously didn’t know I had) I get a little call:

“Mr. Percheeko? We need you to come back in to have more blood drawn because even though we’d assured you that the lab had enough, we need more. Lots more. Can you bring an empty one-gallon milk jug with you? Better safe than sorry! Oh, don’t worry. We can sterilize here at the clinic.”

Turns out that I wasn’t pale from the lack of sunlight in the winter. It was from all the blood loss. Oh well. At least the allergist says I can eat eggs without fear of swelling up like that blueberry girl from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

In closing, here’s a YouTube video of an American Idol audition that has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of this post: