free wena

What a performance.

Right, so a colleague breezes in yesterday all calm and unflapped, and announces, ‘Okes they do free Vitamin B injections next door. I just went.’

Something free. That’s very exciting. I want a piece of the pie.

Although on closer inspection – and foresight is one super power I wouldn’t mind possessing for even one day - there are a lot of free things on this planet that you don’t actually want. Even if the word "free" gives you a little orgasm.

One must always proceed with suspicion. Because there are free things in this world that aren’t always all that and a bag of chips. Such as:
1) Syphilis
2) Bird shit falling from the sky
3) Pamphlets

But a free vitamin B injection, that promises instant vitality, mental strength and other good shit? Well Whale, my American colleague and I jumped at the chance.

Hell, I’d had a needle taking blood from my arm last week, and I didn’t even cry. This lead me unto a false sense of elevated confidence and a very gung-ho ‘Pssht, it’s easy kapeasy chaps.’ Besides, the person who’d just got one was cool about the whole thing, so how bad can it be?

Whale goes in, comes out white as a sheet, says nothing, and walks hurriedly back to the office, looking a little perturbed.
Me and Americano, on the other hand, probably shouldn’t have been in the same room together.

‘It will burn a little bit,’ says the nurse.
Now some of us have low pain thresholds, and some of us have high pain thresholds.

I’m the former. Pinch me, and I hit the roof. Nearly called an ambulance after I got my ears pierced, type of thing. Pain always equals drama and chaos. Always has always will.

‘How much will it burn?’ I ask, instantly starting to panic.

‘You’ll hardly feel it,’ says she, whilst dunking a fuck-off needle into a vestibule of liquid Vitamin B.
‘Face the wall.’

Oh I see, she doesn’t want me to see the metal proboscis penetrate my arm, how considerate of her. She can obviously sense my rising befrazzlement. I hold out my arm, close my eyes, and wince.

‘Please drop your pants.’

Hold the phone. Beg pardon.
You’re sticking THAT thing… into my bum?

The voice is now a high-pitched shriek, only harmonised by Americano, cowering in the corner, properly freaking out, and at a higher Californiesque decibel range than myself. She’s panicking, I’m watching her panic, so I’m panicking, it’s a domino effect, and it’s getting loud.

Soon chaos fills the room, while the nurse, waving about the offending injection in the air, is trying to calm us down, while I grip my buttcheek and pound the wall.

‘It hasn’t gone in yet.’

Then why am I feeling pain already, sistah?

I turn around and try to reason with the woman wielding the needle. Americano is now weeping. Two highly strung people in a room is never going to create a feeling of zen-like tranquility. It’s going to exacerbate the frenzy to fever pitch.

‘OK OK,’ I say, fully sweating. ‘Is there any other way you can administer this. I’m cool with suppositories?’

“I’m afraid not,” she says, inching closer. “Stop clenching and it will be fine.”

Stop clenching. Only God can stop clenching when faced with a frigging needle that’s about to be plunged into his posterior. No mere mortal, come on, would stop clenching. Knowing that that thing is anywhere near it’s rear end, seriously.

I stand up against the wall.

Americano, now having had hers, is sitting in the chair, slumped over, looking green, and generally not enjoying life.
“I’m going to vomit man. Seriously. The burn man……the burrrrrrrn. My ass aches something chronic, gaaaaaaaaaaaad.”

Fuck me over a handlebar, I’m losing my nerve.

‘Fine. FINE. Fuck. The only way I’ll do this is by lying facedown on the floor, so I can’t run away or collapse.’

She plunges it in. Instant burning, going all the way down my leg, and I yelp like a very unattractive yelping thing.

‘OW KAKFUCK! YOU’RE BREAKING MY BALLS HERE! YOU COULD’VE AT LEAST WARNED ME!’

Americano is still moaning in a vomit-induced stupor.

‘Shit’ says the nurse.
Never the kiffest thing to hear from a nurse. When she’s staring at your naked ass.

‘You clenched. The prick messed up. The bruise is going to be worse.’

I’m in so much pain right now.
Nausea sets in, and my mouth tastes like yeast. Which is a little like stale beer. Bad stale beer. Beer, basically, that you buy in a papsak in Touws River.

Americano faints.

How did we get here? What’s going on? How did my awesome day fuck up like this?

Take Americano to a bed, has her blood pressure taken, and is given sugar water.

My right buttcheek is on fire. Can’t sit down for 20 minutes.

Oh, and apparently in order for this to work, we’d need to go at least once a month. Are you friggen kidding me.

Why did no one tell us that it happens on the ass, it tastes like shit, you wanna vomit, it stings like a bitch and it’ll last for only a month?

After calming down to tantrum, it must be said: I feel great now that I can sit down.

And: all this torture was free. I can get it free every month. So woop woop for free shit.

PS: Graeme from Idols, you were totally picking your nose on TV last night, dude.