"Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure."
George Carlin
Yesterday was my birthday.
I spent the afternoon and evening at my father's house, doing what I prefer to do on my birthday — watch football on TV.
But I started the day with an early trip to the nearby clinic. The folks there needed to take a blood sample to make sure that the right dosage is prescribed for a medicine I have been taking for several years. It should come as no surprise to anyone reading this that one's body changes with the passage of time. People who wear glasses need to have their prescriptions adjusted for changes in their vision. And, if you take a medicine on a daily basis, as many people do, sometimes the dosage needs to be adjusted.
Anyway, with my work schedule and the necessary commute time, it simply isn't possible for me to plan to go in during the week. Fortunately, the clinic is open for abbreviated hours on Saturdays, and no appointment is necessary for blood work. You just need to get there before everyone else does if you want to avoid the wait.
The clinic opens at 8 a.m. so I got up early on a Saturday morning and got there right at 8 a.m. (OK, it was really 8:07, but that's close enough.) I walked in, told the receptionist I was there to do blood work and was whisked right in to the room where they do that stuff.
I had to wait there for a little while, then a young man walked in to take my blood. I told him that, in the past, people who have taken blood samples have found it easier to get it from the veins in my hands than the veins in my arms. I'm like my father in that regard. For some reason (genetic, I suppose) the veins in our arms are not conducive to the procedure for taking blood samples.
Now, I have been me all my life so I know things about me that people who have never met me before — like this young man — do not know. In the case of having blood drawn, I always try to save us all a little time, and I tell whoever is taking my blood that it tends to work best when it is taken from my hands.
But they always remind me of that George Carlin quote at the top of this post. They may take many things on faith, but they always have to touch the paint to make sure it is wet.
So I have learned to let 'em touch the paint. I tend to feel like a pin cushion by the time they are finished because, once they have failed to find a vein they can use in one arm, they always want to try the other, but — with rare exceptions, and there have been one or two — they are forced to conclude that I was right, and they proceed to my hands.
That is how it was yesterday. When the young man finally had to concede — after about half an hour of probing my arms for veins — that he would be successful using my hands instead, I watched as vial after vial filled up. It was like he had hit a gusher. And I pointed out that I had tried to save us some time.
But he had to touch the wet paint. They always do.
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