My First Drug Test

Urea, on the rocks.

For the first time in never, I took a drug test.

And yes, the experience was very pissy.

I visited a temp agency under the false impression of desperation. Frustration was fraying at the threads of my lab coat, which was in dire need of a fresh coating of bleach.

It was my own personal field trip, conducted for illumination of high unemployment and limiting of labour to those soulless, woefully fake smiles of clerical or construction work.

With unclear instructions, I was given a specimen container to release a null sample of clear urine.

“That’s okay. People tend to get nervous.” said Stacey, the administrative executive.

Except, I wasn’t.

The skeptical look I received from Lorem Ipsum, head recruiter, was nothing less than absurd comedy. Albeit, a bit annoying when attempting to communicate a simple misunderstanding.

At the time, my science education couldn’t recall the error made. Lorem Ipsum certainly made no motion or utterance of explanation beyond conspicuously pointed glaring and the same parroted question of “Is this water?”

And still, my answer, constant, honest, sincerely clueless, and exhausted, “From the toilet, yes. It’s toilet water,” was ignored.

I informed them that it was my first time and, as expected, I got f*cked six ways ‘til Sunday.

Even if I had recognised my mistake before leaving the building, there was hardly enough urine to fill the cup to a halfway mark dense enough for the litmus strips to detect.

I was never before in a situation to be screened for drugs and, while my intuition was brimming with the obvious thought of removing my shoes, socks and pants, demeaning to squat and piss into a cup placed on the floor, I still decided to simply scoop a sample of the urine dispensed in the toilet, despite it being insignificant in volume.

Of course, the toilet water would be of a higher percentage juxtaposed to the urine of which I likely missed collecting at all.

Again, this knowledge presented itself in retrospect when I returned to retake the test a few hours later, deigning to commit the task of hovering above a MacGyvered likeness of squat toilets.

This time, Lorem Ipsum was not my cardiac-arrested supervisor.

If eyes could clutch pearls, they would be stretched from the socket, mixing someone else’s bodily fluids from soiled gloves with their vitreous humour.

Guys have it easy, and, naturally, one can imagine the test was designed in favour of men with only male genitalia in mind. Using only a specimen cup as equipment is rather debilitating to anatomy that requires sitting to release a stream.

The stream was akin to the faulty plumbing of one of two of our home restrooms where the faucet stream was split in different directions.

In summary, a mess was made, which could have been prevented if only I had been provided a funnel to mimic the ease of transport that phallic instruments possess.

That, or the simple solution of informing me with extended definition to the exact procedural sequence of events for an experience that the subject had previously mentioned with clear emphasis about having never taken.

I had nothing to hide.

I chain-smoked a pack and a half of cigarettes for a few weeks at the beginning of university. I still record the amount smoked with that value of approximation as those sticks from the two packs I ever handled were mostly smoked to a quarter rather than to the filter. And, after first semester of Freshman year, I had experimented for several weeks, quit and haven’t continued since vomiting over that balcony in front of a few thousand students during class transition.

Aside from bearing the name tag of “Teetotaller”, there was also another experimental venture with Mary Jane. A single inhalation from the grimy hole of a rotten apple in Death Valley heat, sitting shotgun in a mall parking lot in a Tinder match’s car.

In short, I got “high” on a migraine.

Aside from those inconsiderable samples of vice, my cuisine of choice was always restricted to psychedelics, although I’ve yet to have a taste.

In any case, my body and mind have been cleaner than Scottish tap water since the non-existent battles with peer pressure for adolescence.

Nevertheless, after all manner of incredulity and general misunderstanding had been performed, ad nauseam, the administrator and I agreed that I would return later to retake.

And yes, I did jest in regards to not being offered a glass of water in preparation.

There was no reaction when introduced to a little room adjacent to the water closet. I didn’t object to placing the cup on the floor, hovering my flower above the vase, as it were, while angling just so as to direct the flow.

Indeed, some escaped the cup’s notice, expectorating onto the tile, translucent against the stark contrast of dim radiance from a single, jaundiced lightbulb.

Americans, and their fragile dignity, should really invest in squat toilets.