The Post Where I Think I Failed a Drug Screen

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I’m branching out a little from stay-at-home motherhood. I got a fun little part time job a couple of weeks ago, and last week I got another. One small hurdle. The second job requires a drug screen.

I didn’t bat an eyelash when I was told I’d need to trip off down the road to go pee in a cup. I don’t do illicit drugs, and I drink a lot of water, so I was good to go all around. Should have been a piece of cake, right? Wrong.

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a drug screen. Let me just say that criminals have gotten sneakier. The last time I jumped through this particular hoop, they handed me a container, I went in the bathroom, took care of business, passed (pardon the expression) the cup through a little door, and went on my merry way. Let’s just say that a great deal has changed.

I was told to put my personal effects in a drawer and empty my pockets, which was understandable. You never know when someone might sneak in a vial of urine in their purse. Movie theatres have this trouble all the time. Or maybe that’s just with candy. I forget. I dutifully tucked all my stuff away. I am now surprised that they didn’t check under my skirt to make sure I wasn’t hiding a small pee donor. Then the nice urine lady said “Now wash your hands with that soap.” That soap. There was only one kind of soap available, but it’s nice to feel like maybe I had options and was choosing the right one. It’s a test, after all, and I like passing tests.

While I pondered the significance of that particular soap, Nice Urine Lady disappeared. And then reappeared. And handed me a cup. “Fill it above the line and bring it back to me. Don’t flush the toilet. You have four minutes.” I hate working on a deadline, but I soldiered on to fill the cup.

The first thing that I noticed was the pretty blue water in the toilet. I wouldn’t mind having a car that color. The second thing I noticed was that the bathroom had no sink. At all. What kind of fun house bathroom was this? How’s a body to wash their hands before exiting the restroom if there’s no sink? I finished my duty (duty, people. Not doody. Just not.), and all I could think of was how much I did not want to touch that door handle. And that’s when I failed my drug screen. By flushing the toilet.

I challenge anyone in a public restroom who was not born in a barn to consciously walk away from their work and see how difficult it is. (Just make sure you walk back, though. To take care of things.) But Nice Urine Lady had told me not to flush. I remembered that as my foot came down on the flushy thing, but it was too late. In the split second that followed, I racked my brain for a way to bring it all back. I was unsuccessful. Everyone in the waiting room was treated to a “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” To catch the full impact, it must be read aloud with Doppler effect. Or just click this:

Cup in hand, I did the walk of shame back to Nice Urine Lady. “I guess you know what I did,” I muttered, shamefaced. She nodded. “Don’t worry. It happens all the time,” she said in a tone that implied that it never happens. Let me just say that being asked to pour my own pee-pee down a sink was not one of my finer moments. I picked up my purse and told her I’d be back next week. She shook her head. “If you leave now, we have to count that as a refusal to test.” Refusal to test. Awesome. So now Nice Urine Lady thinks I’ve got something to hide. I took a deep breath and resolved to see this thing through.

I may be limited in many regards, but by golly, I can pee in a cup. Nice Urine Lady gave me three hours to get the job done. Thirty minutes and a glass of water later, I was ready to try again. What can I say? I’m an overachiever.  “Are you sure?” NUL asked. “Because if you can’t fill it past the sticker, you have to start over…” But sometimes you just have to believe in yourself.

In that 30 minutes, though, I learned some things. First off, the water was blue because Nice Urine Lady made it that way when she disappeared. I still don’t know why, other than it was to indicate if I poured something naughty into it. I have no idea what that substance would have been. Second, the rules say there can be no running water in the room, which explains the lack of sink. Again, I don’t know why. Because it interferes with magical energies? Third, there are some seriously sneaky people in this world if this many rules are needed.

It’s a crazy world we live in, people. A crazy world.