It was a lovely afternoon for a walk,
Yet the two blocks from the car to the medical lab were fraught with tension.
My “Get down from there!”s reverberated through the air
As they insisted on scaling every sloped retaining wall and ledge
Of which there were many.
The baby who never cries
Chose the precise five minutes in which a lab technician was fishing around in my arm for a decent vein
To start screaming bloody murder.
So there I was,
Rubber band wrapped tight around my arm,
Lab tech wiggling and weaving a needle around in search of my puny vein,
Listening to one child wail,
Watching another stare at my arm, mouth agape,
And the other, more squeamish one, completely out of eye shot.
“Make sure you keep pressure on that for a few minutes before you push the stroller,” she warned,
“Or you’ll bruise.”
God no.
We fled that place as fast as humanly possible.
And walked back to the car just in time for my allergies to set in.
Uncontrollable sneezing,
A somewhat full bladder,
And three vaginal births.
You do the math.