Why Breakfast Is The Most Important Meal Of The Day

Hey, remember when I was having my earlobe sewn shut and the plastic surgeon said "God, I'm so out of it"? And then I was having a cavity filled and the dentist was talking about how he'd got someone "all messed up" the night before? Well, apparently those guys went to medical school with the guy who was taking my blood this morning, and they all took the same elective called Things You Just Really, Seriously, Honestly Just Shouldn't Say To A Patient While They're In Your Care.

Which obviously was a class they all failed.

Because this morning I was sitting in a chair with my sleeve rolled up, fist clenched as I'd been told to do, trying not to think of the pints and pints of blood that were draining out of my veins and the needle that was sticking out of my arm, when the guy taking my blood said "hey, where are you from?" And I said "England" and prepared to run through my next line, which, depending on his follow-up question, would either be A) "Ha! Because of a boy! Isn't that always why things happen?" (follow-up question: "wow, how did you get all the way out here?") or B) "yeah, I know, I'm trying to keep it but sometimes it slips" (follow-up question: "you have a bit of an accent, don't you?") or C)"London---well, thereabouts. It's complicated" (follow-up question: "Oh, where in England?") It turned out to be B, and that was fine, so we chatted about that for a while.

And then, because he also had an accent and the conversation had turned that way, and because the silence was sort of awkward and I'd already read all the We're Trying To Distract You! signs on the wall in front of me while my blood drained out of my veins, I said "and where are you from?" And when he said "Indonesia," I said "oh, cool, I've been to Indonesia---well, parts of it. It's very pretty!"

And then he turned to unscrew the cap of the THIRD vial he was filling with my blood, and said "well, I had to leave when I was a baby because they kept killing people; they just killed everyone, they dragged them out of their cars and shot them and stomped all over them and gouged their eyes out. So much blood in Indonesia, so much crime and pain. They shot my uncle! I moved to America and I never looked back."

And I said the only thing you can really say to that at eight in the morning when there's a needle in your arm and you're starving hungry and you haven't even had any coffee yet because you weren't allowed to eat or drink for twelve hours before getting your blood drawn, and honestly, you were just trying to make polite conversation, and you really didn't know you were venturing into such a dark and heavy conversation about mass genocide so ... well, unprepared.

Which was "Uh, wow, so how about this weather we've been having, huh?"