Monday, July 25, 2011

on peeing in a cup

a portrait of an uppity, pee-judging health professional



I'm not a fan of carrying my own urine around.

I came to this conclusion after agreeing to pee in a cup every day for 3 months. One of our friends is doing research during her 4th year of med school, and her team is collecting urine samples from women to track our levels of some kind of virus, the nature of which I promptly forgot after signing the forms I was given.

The refrigerator at work where I have to store my pee cup is about 50 feet from the bathroom. But that 50 feet is heavily trafficked. People have seen me clutching my little cup. And for some reason, this makes me extremely uncomfortable.

I'm not sure why; another 100 feet away from the refrigerator is a hall of patients who have exposed themselves in far more personal ways than a glimpse of their urine in a cup. Maybe, since most of the people I pass are medical professionals of some kind, I think they're judging my sample?

And if they're not medical professionals, I assume they just think it's gross. (Because that's what I would do.)

While thinking about how ridiculous I am (a favorite pastime of mine), I realized that maybe, just maybe, I actually had an advantage in this specific situation. Because in my lifetime, most likely the only urine I will have to deal with will be that of someone related to me. Not the case for most of those uppity, pee-judging health professionals I pass in the hall.

And while I was looking on the bright side of this situation, I also realized that there was no chance of me:
a) meeting the man of my dreams in the hallway while carrying a cup of urine or
b) running into my crush (literally) and spilling urine all over him.

Also, I get paid to do this.

That's a lot of whining for a 30 second walk and 70 dollars, am I right?

2 comments:

  1. haha I would feel awkward carrying my pee cup to the fridge, too.
    But just think - you're helping your friend, too :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a sweet tie. I have to start wearing that more often.

    ReplyDelete