Day: November 2, 2021

The Deadline

Fandango2 Comments

Dave, my manager, came over to my cubicle and asked me if I was going to complete the response to the proposal I was preparing on schedule. “It’s almost done, but there was one section where I had to reach out to a specialist and he hasn’t gotten back to me yet,” I admitted.

“Shit, Chris,” Dave said. “That’s not good. I told Dan we’d have it ready for him to review first thing tomorrow morning. I need to alert Dan that it might be late getting to his desk.”

“Don’t do that yet, Dave,” I pleaded. “I don’t need a stigma about missing deadlines hanging over my head. I’ll call that specialist I told you about and see if he can get me what I need from him before the end of today. Then I can finish it up from home tonight.”

“Well, you’d better hope he can,” Dave said. “Otherwise, call your wife and tell her to prepare turkey for dinner tonight.”

“Turkey? Why turkey?” I asked.

“Because then you can use the bird’s wishbone to wish that you don’t get fired tomorrow.

Written for these daily prompts: The Daily (proposal), My Vivid Blog (schedule), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (specialist), Your Daily Word Prompt (alert), Ragtag Daily Prompt (stigma), and Word of the Day Challenge (wishbone).

I Have Excellent Veins

Fandango50 Comments

I suppose this could have been posted for yesterday’s The Monday Peeve from Paula Light because what I’m about to share with you happened yesterday afternoon. But I was in no mood to write this post yesterday afternoon because I was too pissed off. Look at this picture.

Yes, that’s my arm. The inside of my elbow, actually. And that’s what it looked like when I got home from having an MRI with contrast. Why was I getting an MRI? Well, when I had my annual physical exam — my first “annual” physical exam since 2019 thanks to all this COVID crap — my doctor said that my blood test showed that my PSA count was high. PSA is a protein made by the prostate gland. The amount of PSA may be higher in men who have prostate cancer.

During my physical, my doctor gave me a prostate exam. I won’t get into graphic details, but having a doctor stick his finger up your butt is not only mortifying, it’s very uncomfortable. After completing his finger in my butt exam, he said, “As I thought, your prostate is enlarged and I want you to get an MRI.”

I’m really not worried about having an elevated PSA, nor even about having an enlarged prostate. The prostate is gland about the size and shape of a walnut. It tends to grow larger with age. And I’m an old man. So no big deal. But, it’s also not uncommon for men to develop prostate cancer, which is why my doctor wanted me to get an MRI. You know — just in case.

Anyway, because my doctor wanted the MRI with contrast, they had to put an IV in my arm in order to inject the contrast medium into my bloodstream so that it would show up in the MRI. And having an IV didn’t concern me at all because I have excellent veins.

Whenever I’ve had to have blood drawn, or have donated blood to the Red Cross, or have had IVs before, there’s never been a problem because I have such good veins. Medical technicians have complimented me on my veins. One even told me my veins are “beautiful” and that she wished everyone had veins like mine.

But this guy who tried to find my vein yesterday in order to get the IV in my arm before the MRI was a fucking butcher. He stuck the needle in my arm and was having trouble finding my beautiful vein. So he started moving the needle around, pushing it in further, pulling it out a bit. Then he pulled it out of my arm completely and said he’d try again with a different needle.

Are you fucking kidding me? This can’t be happening. My veins are goddam beautiful. He tried again. And failed again. “Maybe you can see if someone else can properly insert the IV, you fucktard,” I said. (Okay, I didn’t actually say “you fucktard,” but I thought it very loudly).

But he said, “Third time’s a charm,” and went back in. This time he finally succeeded and the MRI proceeded without further incident.

When I got back home and looked at my bruised and bloodied arm, I decided then and there to write an angry post about my trauma. Trauma that should never have happened because I have excellent fucking veins.

Fandango’s Story Starter #18

Fandango22 Comments

It’s time for my weekly Story Starter prompt. Here’s how it works. Every Tuesday morning (my time), I’m going to give you an incomplete “teaser” sentence and your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to build a story (prose or poetry) around that partial sentence. It doesn’t have to be the first sentence in your story, and you don’t even have to use it in your post at all if you don’t want to. The purpose of the teaser is simply to spark your imagination and to get your storytelling juices flowing.

This week’s Story Starter teaser is:

When I first moved here a few months back, I couldn’t believe that…

If you care to write and post a story built on this teaser, be sure to link back to this post and to tag your post with #FSS. I would also encourage you to read and enjoy what your fellow bloggers do with this teaser.

And most of all, have fun.

FOWC with Fandango — Specialist

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FOWC

Welcome to November 2, 2021 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “specialist.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.