Somewhere during the course of this last year, I apparently died. And I really wish I'd known when it was, so I could have stopped spending so much on utilities...
And maybe have taken a few days off.
See, it's like this. I went to the doctor's on Friday morning, just to have my blood pressure checked. Because, I guess, without the meds they put me on, and careful monitoring, I could explode and take out half the city.
So the assistant brought me into a cold, sterile room and proceeded to cuff my arm and pump the thing like an uninflated Goodyear.
I waited, as my fingers lost all sensory abilities, and then I heard the blood pressure cuff sigh...
Also the assistant.
Pretty soon, she was pumping it up again. Again, I waited. Again, the fingers said "sayonara." And again, the blood pressure monitor and the assistant exhaled irritably.
"I can't get a reading."
So she decided to try the other arm. More pumping. "So long, fingers." And...
Nothing.
"I'll get the doctor."
So the doctor came in-- an intern probably not quite half my age, but about the size of a large Shirley Temple doll. "I hear the assistant was having trouble getting your blood pressure. They're usually very good about things like that. Has this ever happened to you before?"
Have I ever been dead before, you mean? "No," I told her. The irony being that pre-medicine just the very thought of going to the doctor's could have my blood pressure jetting off at 10,000 feet. Now I just don't give a flying fig, and it's been great.
So, on with the cuff again. Once more with the pumping. I waited. I heard the air go out of the cuff. I looked at the expression on the doctor's face...
She had a vague, puzzled little smile.
The doctor said, "Are you feeling any pressure when the cuff fills up?"
I looked at my purple fingers. "Er, yes."
She then took my wrist. "You have a pulse," she said. And I think the moment she said it, she realized this was probably not something she uttered very often.
"I also saw my reflection in the mirror this morning," I said helpfully. I wonder if she wrote that down in my chart.
She decided to try the other arm.
No dice.
"I'm getting 120 over nothing. I'm going to call in the attending."
The attending physician, a cheerful mature lady stepped into the room.
"I really am alive," I greeted her. "I am unnaturally pale, but I'm pretty sure I've been living all this time. I know because I'm still getting paychecks."
Two times more, they took my blood pressure. And two times more, I had no reading. At this point, we were all laughing and they decided they had to let me go.
120 over nothing was as good as it was going to get that day. They sent me out into the world of the living.
The thing is, you know, I kinda thought being undead would have more perks than this.
Like, I'd get to sweep around in dramatic clothes with other pale people and act angsty. I'd have better hair, and get to hang around in an old mansion with interesting antiques. Or at the very least, I could have a little excitement in dodging guys with cricket bats.
But here I am, back in the grind, apparently deceased but still putting in a 9 and a half hour day.
What's appropriate under these sorts of circumstances? I don't really know.
Maybe I'll send myself some flowers and a nice sympathy card.
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