The Kindness of women

I escape the household in the evening to meet my pal for dinner and catch up. As usual we exchange Christmas gifts in January, it’s almost a tradition by default.
“How are you?” she enquires with genuine concern written on every pore on her face.
“Fine now.” We trot through our recent pasts, the highs and lows and everything else inbetween.
“You need to take better care of yourself,” she commands.
“Actually, it’s funny you should say that I had a nearly full medical this morning.”
“Nearly full? Would you care to translate that for me?”
“Well I went for my first annual medical check up.”
“Your first? How can it be your first?”
“Um…..well I’ve never had one before so it’s a first by my reckoning.”
“Didn’t you have them in England?”
“Of course not! Don’t be so daft, perish the thought and don’t you go telling anyone.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d die of embarrassment.”
“Embarrassment?”
“Only wimps go for medicals.”
“Wimps?”
“Kiddie winkies, elderly people and sick people, not hunky chunky healthy people like me.”
“How do you know that you’re healthy if you’ve never had a medical?”
“Because I’m not ill silly.”
“How long have you been here now?”
“Twelve years.”
“How come you’ve never had a medical?”
“Um…well……I just never quite got around to it somehow.”
“Ah, but didn’t you just say that you ‘nearly’ had a medical?”
“I did.”
“How does anyone nearly have a medical?”
“Well had most of the tests, but not the run on the machine test.”
“Why didn’t you have the ‘run on the machine’ test?”
“Because I don’t run and anyway I had a touch of the flu.”
“So you were too ill to run?”
“Right.”
“So you’re a wimp then?”
“I most certainly am not! Fit as a flea.”
“A flea that can’t take a test on a running machine?”
“Well……I had all the other tests.”
“Which ones were those?”
“The stab you in the arm with a sharp thing and steal a gallon of blood test for starters.”
“A blood test.”
“They took the lot.”
“Really. How do you know?”
“Because they told me afterwards that I had lots of white things in my blood.”
“?”
“Plates? Something like plates anyway. The point is that my blood is now white because they took all the red bits. The nerve of some people.”
“That’s probably due to the virus or infection or whatever it is you have that’s giving you a low count.”
“Damn. I’d forgotten that you used to be a nurse.”
“Memory loss too?”
“No, not at all, just general confusion and messed up brain activity due to blood loss.”
“Anything else I can translate for you whilst we’re on the subject?”
“Hmm well the numbers were a little confusing.”
“What numbers?”
“The numbers with capital letters.”
“Capital letters?”
“LDLs and the like.”
“And the like?”
“Yes. He said I was a reptile which wasn’t terribly enlightening.”
“I think maybe you’re muddling your blood pressure figures with your cholesterol figures.”
“Two tests?”
“Can you remember the numbers?”
“Um……144 / 60 I think.”
“Wow you do have low blood pressure.”
“That was the LLD stuff.”
“Geez maybe you are healthy afterall.”
“He seemed to think so.”
“You’re a text book walking advertisement of the ‘Ensure Diet’ then?”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Here, eat that croissant just to please me. I put cream in your coffee.”
“Yuck! Anyway, I’m as healthy as a whippet.”
“A Whippet that can’t run.”
“I don’t want to wear anything out prematurely.”
“Blood pressure?”
“Umm….106 over 54.”
“Geez!”
“I was horizontal at the time, I’m sure it would have been bigger if I’d been vertical.”
“You don’t want it to be…….bigger.”
“I don’t? Isn’t everything bigger and better in America?”
“How can you not know these things?”
“I failed Human Biology.”
“Human Biology?”
“Yes at school the clever people studied biology but the stupid people studied Human Biology which was supposed to be easier.”
“But you failed?”
“It wasn’t easier.”
“Clearly.”
“I always had spiffingly good marks for my diagrammes though.”
“Diagrammes?”
“Yes body parts, although I often mis-labeled them.”
“Mis-labeled?”
“Yes, well body bits are so complicated. They’re all just a load of old offal anyway.”
“Offal?”
“Yes you know, kidney, liver and bacon.”
“Agh! You’ve quite put me off my sandwich!”
“What kind of sandwich is it?”
“BLT.”
“Stick to triage, you’re better at that.”

My other life is over "here" at "whittereronautism" just in case you were wondering.

The Kindness of women

http://alien-in-a-foreign-field.blogspot.com/2008/01/kindness-of-women.html