Drug Tests Are Awesome

   The place I currently work at is a drug free zone, and they take this very seriously. After you interview, the very next thing that you do is take your little pee cup (that they provide) and your paperwork and march yourself down to the happy little health clinic and sign yourself up for the pee test. Not really a big deal.
   After hiring, you are not done with the drug tests, because my work does monthly drawings for a random testing, and since my hire date, I have been drawn five times. Yes, five times. I am a pee test pro. However, the very first time I was drawn, I was not the pro that I am today. As I was given, by the store secretary, my plastic cup and paper work, I was slightly nervous because I had just gone to the bathroom, and I didn't feel a real need to go. I was hoping for one of those looooong waits in the waiting room. But, I was not too nervous, because ever since giving birth to my daughter, peeing has not been a problem for me. I always need to go, so I was pretty sure that I could do this drug test - no problem.
   Was I wrong! When she called me back there, and I was struggling with the impossible task of aiming (when you are a chick) into that little cup, I realized that I couldn't go. Not a drop. My bladder had let me down, and my job flashed before my very eyes!!!
   Shamefully I handed the tech my empty cup, telling her that I couldn't go and asking what I had to do now. She stared at me hard, like I was a bad little pot-head trying to pull a fast one. "You have to sit in there," she said and pointed me towards the little exam room, "Don't close the door."
   She left for a moment and came back with a small pitcher of water and a cup (to drink from, not to pee in). Handing these to me she told me that I only had two hours to manage to pee and that this was all of the water that I was allowed to have. I gulped. I wasn't thirsty, but don't image that the pitcher was big, this was probably about a liter of water. I'm not sure of the exact amount, not a lot, but an awful lot if you are not thirsty. Oh, I felt like I was being forced to drink an ocean of water. And I wasn't allowed to leave that little exam room; I had to stay there for the entire two hours. Luckily, I was giving back my belongings, which they take from you when you first get to the back of the clinic, before you get into the bathroom, so I was able to spend some of the time texting my sister. Other than that phone, all I had for entertainment was one very old magazine, and in that two hours I flipped through the entire thing about three times, forcing myself to drink from the pitcher of water that seemed to be bottomless.
    I took the whole two hours. The tech kept popping in and asking if I needed to go yet, but I couldn't. My bladder was frozen with stage fright and I had nothing. I tried speaking firmly to it, tried scolding that unruly bladder of mine, but nothing worked. I just didn't have any urge to pee what-so-ever.  Nothing was coming, and by this time I had multiple techs, nurses, and doctors pop their heads in at me, giving the stink eye to the silly woman who couldn't pee.
   Finally, my time was almost up and the testy little tech told me that I either had to go, or that she had to report to my job that I had not taken the drug test successfully. I gulped; what did that mean?! Would I be fired?! I had not (and still have not) ever been fired and my poor little pride shrunk from the thought. I couldn't be fired. With one last dire threat to my misbehaving bladder, I took the cup, and went to pee. And I did! I did the 'don't flush' chant, because a flushed toilet invalidates a drug test, and proudly opened the door and handed that tech my cup of pee. Let me tell you, no one has ever been so profoundly relieved to go pee as I was in that moment. My job was saved!!! I was not a druggie and I could prove it!!! The absolute relief that I felt, not because my bladder was bursting, but because my pride was saved and I could prove to all those little techs, doctors and nurses that I was not on drugs.
   Since then, as I have said, I have had many more pee tests, but I have never had that issue again. My bladder now understands that the pee test is not an option, and participates without giving me trouble. Still, because of that one time, I always have that moment when my heart stops because I wonder if I am going to be able to pee.