I came along, and wrote a song for you

He was sweaty. He was shaking. And he kept staring at me from under the hood of his sweatshirt.

I'm speaking of the skinny, unshaven white guy in the lobby of the drug testing facility the station had me visit Thursday. I guess he was there for a test, too. I had my doubts about his results.

I, on the other hand, have little doubt that my test will come back clean. I smoked a little during my community college days, but transferring to a real university carried with it a new attitude. It was time to get serious. I'm quite sure that now, a couple of years later, the chemical content of my urine is within acceptable parameters.

So why did I feel guilty?

It's just a drug test for a new employer. I haven't done anything wrong. But just going in there makes me feel like I'm under suspicion. It's not like I'm shivering in a cold sweat while I give the sober people in the lobby the evil eye.

"Max, come on back."

Beverly, the fat redneck piss technician, led me to another room and handed me the cup. Beverly wasn't in a good mood. She seemed like the kind of person who was never in a good mood. If I had hair that bad and a job smelling piss all day, I'd be upset also.

"You have to fill up to this line," she said, pointing. The cup had a little thermometer on the side of it. "That will tell me if it's really yours," she said, when she saw me looking at it. "If it's too cold I'll know you cheated."

She opened the door to a tiny restroom. "DO NOT close the door. DO NOT flush. DO NOT wash your hands. You do any of that and you'll have to do it all over. And I won't be happy about that."

Yeesh, like I want to be here any longer than I have to. So I contributed the proper sample and got the hell out of there.

As she was showing me out the door, she called the guy wearing the hood. "Barry, you think you're ready to try again?" Those feelings of smug superiority I had previously directed toward Barry gave way to sympathy. No wonder he was in such bad shape. He apparently had made Beverly unhappy.