As a sidenote, I feel rather strongly about giving blood. I think that it's a relatively painless act, taking no more than half an hour, that saves lives. And all healthy people should do it.

OK, Anna. Get off your soap box. And relax, people, that's about as preachy as I will ever get.

Trepidatiously (??)pulling open the little spring loaded door on the RV festooned with "RED CROSS SOUTH" and hearts and swirls and such, I had a flashback to the days of high school. Do you know I'm thinking...?

Its the return of the Hearing Testing Bus!! What the hell were they thinking?? It was like a trip back in time, being filed through the gym, out the back door, and assembled in a single file line. In front of a world-weary Aerostar van, or some general issue bastard child of an RV and an Econoline. There we stood before this mottled brown monolith, bored with the whole thing as high schoolers are contractually obligated to be. Then they would take us, groups of six or so, into the bus. We went groups of six, because no more than that could fit inside this damn rolling closet. Upon creaking back the thin door, we were greeted by shag carpet.

What?!
SHAG??

What life did this aging bus once lead?? Was it a party bus of some kind in the Hippie Hey Day? We quickly scan the perimeter for bent spoons with burn marks and twenty year old syringes. Or maybe these suspicious looking "hearing testers" moonlight as strippers, having hearing aide orgys in their rickety soundcheck on wheels, making the rounds from lab to lab, showing the techs a good time.

I was always surprised when these testing sessions ran unsupervised by school staff of any kind. Did they acctually *trust* these lab monkeys??

"Here, vulnerable and ignorant student, come sit in this *sealed off* van, oh, for *sound proofing* purposes of course, and disable half of your sensory capability by placing these headphones on and looking straight ahead."

"Um, I just got my, like, upper ear pierced, or whatever, and I can't wear these {vice grip} headphones."

"Oh thats fine, just come back to this sequestered, inner sanctum of the Hearing Bus. Here, my assistant testing troll will shackle you and lead you into the Testing Foxhole. Ah, yes, very good. Now I will just seal you in to the Holy of Testing Bus Holies and begin The Test."

Now all of us poor bastards that were able to withstand the constrictor-like suction-hold of the Testing Headphones were ushered into six miniscule seats nailed to the inside wall of the Outer Shagged Sanctum. For those of you unaquainted with the Hearing Testing Bus, you by now, have either stopped reading ('what IS this crazy loon talking about?!') or you are, at best, very confused. Let me explain:

Upon entering the bus, one is confronted with wall to wall Shag, covering the floor and ceiling as well (does Shag *really* soundproof?? Tune in next time, when we grill our special guest Shaft for the answer!). Three small seats line both sides of the interior, and each seat is half-enclosed by a small wall jutting up from the floor. Furthering the feelings of claustrophobia/about to be kidnapped-ness. At the back of the van, there is a small, refrigerator box sized "room" for those unable to wear the headphones for sundry reasons, in the main Sanctum of the bus, ie, fresh piercings. The test is performed inside it, sans headphones. Miraculously a Testing Troll *and* a student manage to wedge themselves in at the same time. The test is a series of beeps and high pitched tones fed into the headphones, and you aknowlege each sound you hear by a raise of the hand. Thus the Hearing Gestapo forcing you to glue your eyes to the front of the Bus. Then the Head Testing Frau reads off the instructions at that painfully slow, monotonous tone that all highschoolers have withstood from such things as "Standardized Testing Instructions" and "All Lectures Ever Given In a Classroom." (OK, raise hand when brain computes beep through auditory canal. Think I got that one.) After the test, you are, surprisingly, released back into the wild. All of you except that inevitable kid that didn't pass, or had to re-test for some reason you really didn't care about.

Oh, memories of the Testing Bus.

Well, at any rate, I was a bit nervous at entering another Lab-on-Wheels, and found myself eyeing the "nurses" to make sure their outfit was legit. I finally decided that they probably wouldn't go to all the trouble of being a Blood Donation Center if they had malicious intent, and would stick to some other simpler shtick, like selling knock-off sunglasses out of the back of a van off of Peachtree St.
So now 3 pints of my plucky A-posative is floating around in a testing center somewhere. "I hafta say it wuz a good day."

I remain, until close of the Fiscal Year,
TheIdleReceptionist