i hate getting my blood taken, but today i had to for my annual next week. as i walk to the lab, i admit to the lady i’m scared of needles. she laughs it off and says i will be fine. as she sticks my arm, she begins talking about my pullover hoodie. it’s last year’s salute to service chargers hoodie. she says her son only likes the hoodies with zippers and she doesn’t know why. she says she prefers the pullover and i agree. one of my points was that many zippers are made of metal and the metal begins to smell. by the time you know, she pulled out the needle and put a bandaid on my arm. she could’ve simply taken my blood and left it at that, but she went out of her way to bring up convo with me so i could not only get my mind off my fear of needles, but so the time could go by quicker. as i walked out, i thanked her. i went to check out, then headed to the elevator. there were 4 of us in the elevator. an older lady asks us one by one if we knew where the senior care center was. none of us knew, but by the time we got to the first floor she was confused. i asked her to walk with me to the directory. as we were at the directory, we found it was on the 3rd floor in office 310. she thanked me, then made her way back to the elevator. too many times we are too busy with ourselves we miss opportunities to make the world a better place, but if you stop and look around, there’s plenty of difference to be made in a world of such busyness and tunnel vision.
i’m glad i was able to realize that through the kindness of the lady who took my blood.
-ratha, 11:24am, 10.14.20