Hello! I am finally posting another story on here. Hurrah. Haha. I wrote this with inspiration from Sleeping Around on Sammy. Lizzy-Lou, your stories make me wish I had a boyfriend to cheat on. hahaha.

But this was just something that came to mind and I scribbled down quickly.

Mk, enjoy.

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Why is it that the doctors or nurses feel the need to put up posters of herpes, gonorrhea, other nasty pictures of STDs, and the importance of a condom in the room that they test you in? I mean, do they think that they will scare the disease out of you? You’re already there to get tested, it’s a little late to try and put the fear of God into you about this stuff.

So there I am, sitting on the bed/table with the annoying paper crunching overtime I shift, surrounded by posters of the horrors of STDs.

Thank you, Saint Joseph's Hospital Clinic for making me even more scared. It’s a comfort that you care enough to try and scare us out of our wits while waiting for results of probably the most important test of our lives. And I didn’t even study. I feel cheated.

I’m staring at the poster for AIDS. There are 3 stages- Primary HIV Infection, Clinically Asymptomatic Stage, and the Final Stage Symptomatic HIV infect. Also known as the wonderful Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

The poster is orange. I wonder- if I eat enough carrots, will I turn orange? Would that be an odd way to cure myself of the virus that my body may be carrying? Turn the color of the poster, and ta-dah, you are healed?

That would be nice.

Oh look, the nurse came back in. I didn’t hear her, which is probably one of the reasons mousey nurses scare me. They pop- no, wrong verb... they appear and you wonder where they came from, how you didn’t notice them and why they have such a fucking big needle.

But in this case, she is holding an envelope. It is white. I am pale, but I would never be able to reach that stage of white with my blood still circulating. God, I hope that doesn’t mean anything.

Nurse Mouse handed me the envelope. i have learned with my extensive experiences in this hospital, that they always give envelopes containing information (good bad or otherwise) to the nurses who look like a gust of wind will make them break down.

I took the envelope and smiled at her. No big needles- she wasn’t a bad guy; not today, anyway.

I carefully slipped my finger into the seam and open the letter.

I got a paper cut. Shit. I think this is an omen.

The nurse gave me a bright pink bandage. Does she know that the news is good, so she is giving me a happy band-aide. Or does she know that it is bad, so she wants to cheer me up the only way her teetering-on-a-mental-breakdown mind can handle? I am so screwed if I ever go in for a shrink.

I said thank you quietly and ripped open the envelope.

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I just realized that I mentioned God a couple of times and that it was a Saint's hospital. I've had people be offended before, so I just want to say that it was meant to imply nothing. I am Jewish. I'm not trying to instill the fear of God into you... yeah.