Like Donkeys, Standing

Come with me, won’t you, and imagine yourself immersed in this real-life, low-stakes equanimity experiment:

Emerge from the medical lab bathroom with your warm, stoppered urine sample, and return to the room where moments ago, a calm, professional technician withdrew a few gallons of your blood for routine analysis.

Notice a Willowy Young Thing sitting where you sat just moments ago, and stare at the technician, waiting for her to notice you + urine; avoid eye contact with the W.Y.T.

Suspecting the W.Y.T. considers your presence an intrusion into what is now by rights her blood-giving space, stand like a donkey inches outside the room, until at last the technician wearily notices you, and says, “You can put that right here –“ indicating where the tube of urine, now a few degrees cooler, might line up with the glistening tubes of your blood — “ and you can throw that­–” indicating the little cup you were supposed to pee into first, but didn’t use, cleverly bypassing it by peeing directly into the now-stoppered tube, freestyling around the official Urine Collection Protocol — “into the wastebasket in the bathroom.”

Which you do, considering for only a moment whether to pocket the pristine cup instead, since it’s completely unused, and could prove handy for some future project. Instead, toss it in the wastebasket, relieved that you’ll never see the W.Y.T. again, or if you do, never recognize her, since you were careful to avoid looking at her during your time clutching your urine sample.

As you head for the elevator, notice for the second time an elderly gent, who you first observed while having your blood drawn, when he wandered into the very doorway where you recently stood donkey-like, this man flummoxed by the iPad check-in device that has replaced a human being to welcome one and all to this medical test pavilion. See him waving an anachronistic piece of paper he’s obviously brought with him, as he now vainly seeks the human being he dreams will assist him.

Maintain a blank expression with a needle in your arm as another calm, professional technician one room over instructs him to “use the E-pad to check in,” and watch as he wanders back the way he came, knowing he’ll be back, a moment later, to report, “It doesn’t work.” See your prediction come true.

And as you make your exit, having weathered the urine gauntlet, make eye contact now with the poor bastard, who sits clutching his piece of paper. Observe his expression, which communicates the thought, “Jesus Christ, don’t I have enough to worry about without having to check in like I’m at Starbucks,” and reflects a look of urbane resignation to the indignities of advancing age and faceless lab procedures.

In this moment, regard one another, him warily, you with growing compassion, and with subtle manipulation of the eyes and head, signal wordlessly that it’s all right, has always been all right, will remain all right, that you and he are brothers, here for some medical tests, two donkeys wandering the hallways, clutching vials of urine and sheets of paper, lost, alone, in the greatest city in the world, each moment moving us closer to extinction, but for now, alive and kicking.