When you’re a college athlete, you get used to peeing in cups. There’s the glucose/protein test, the glucose protein re-test (because the smarties in athletic training used expired testing strips the first time around), random athletic department drug tests, and of course, random NCAA drug tests.
In my case, the word “random” actually meant “mandatory,” because I could pretty much count on being selected. Just as my backpack full of camera equipment usually leads to my “random” selection to have my personal space invaded by an electronic wand at airport security, my mediocre cross country and track performances obviously aroused suspicion amongst the performance-enhancing drug police.
I recently became employed (yay!) by a company that requires pre-employment drug screening (ugh), which meant I would have to attend yet another involuntary-urine-sample extravaganza.
The difference with this pee party, though, was that instead of testing for things like anabolic steroids, HGH and Claritin D (that’s not a typo—being “Claritin clear” can get you banned from NCAA competition), the nice folks at Occupational Health Services would be screening for substances like marijuana and cocaine.
I wasn’t too worried—I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m not a meth head. To be on the safe side, I abstained from taking any allergy medication in the hours leading up to my appointment.
When I arrived, I was immediately aware that this test was unlike any other I’d been subjected to. There would be no Dixie cups, no pubic restrooms, no sophomore athletic training students giggling each time they read the instruction sheet out loud.
This test was serious. It was administered by a real medical professional in a real medical office. I had to wait 35 minutes in a real waiting room, where I read an issue of Highlights and got a real headache from Hidden Pictures.
By the time the nurse finally called me back, I knew I would have no problem providing enough milliliters of, um, sampling material. She gave me a ten-minute spiel about how to handle the test cup and reminded me several times not to flush the toilet in the testing restroom. (Yes, there was a bathroom specifically designated for drug tests. The faucet didn’t even work, which led me to believe that at some point in the past, someone had mixed up some Crystal Light in an attempt to outsmart the system.) I nodded and robotically muttered “OK” several times, half-listening and trying to speed up the process because I really had to go.
When I walked into the bathroom, the first thing I noticed was the huge, bright orange sign on the toilet that said, “DO NOT FLUSH” in dark capital letters. The toilet handle was also taped. I suspected they’d had some serious problems with reactionary flushing. I wondered why anyone would even need to flush the toilet. Wasn’t the whole point to pee into the cup?
After I had done my business, I hurried back to the nurse’s office to collect my things, assuming I was good to go. But you know what they say about assuming…
She told me to have a seat while she retrieved the sample. She returned with my pee cup in her latex-gloved hands. I was then required to watch her pour my urine into two separate plastic canisters—one “A” sample, one “B” sample.
This is getting kind of sick and twisted, I thought, just as the nurse handed me the two sealed containers and instructed me to initial the labels. As I held the bottles, I noticed my pee was still warm. Weird.
I half expected her to pull out an ink pad and make me put my finger prints on the labels too, but much to my relief, she abruptly pulled off her gloves and said, “Thank you, you’re dismissed. Results by next week.”
And before I could get in a reply, she was gone, presumably to administer another test. On the bright side, a busy pre-employment drug-testing clinic must be a sign of an economic pick-up.
Also on the bright side, no calls yet, which means I’m probably not a meth head. Probably.
I flushed. lol.
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