Sep. 26, 2006 - Let me share my indignities!
Subtitle for this post "Oh, the Google hits I'm going to get on this one!"
I was reading over at Sockbug about how they make you take drug tests for employment these days.
I can't help it. I have to tell you about all my urinalysis testing. It remains one of the great indignities of my life and I have to tell everyone.
My job in the army was very top-secret, super sneaky, etc. Kind of silly, because most of our techniques could be read about in a Tom Clancy novel or seen in a movie. But anyway, we couldn't take any medication without a big to-do and we had to have pee tests all the time to make sure we weren't on drugs.
They really should have done breath-a-lyzer tests. EOD officially stands for Explosive Ordnance Disposal, but unofficially it stands for Every One Drunk and Every One Divorced. The first leading to the second, I'll say.
Back to the peeing. Oh, I have so many Army pee stories, but I'll choose just this one. I promise more later. My very first day at EOD school, we had our class introduction. Me and 24 Navy guys. (It is a joint-service school, run by the Navy at an Air Force base.) There were a few other women at the school, about 5 I think, but I was alone in my class. After the security briefing and blahblahblah look around you most of you will fail out blahblah only the super duper survive blahblah, we had to take a urinalysis test. They handed out the sample jars. The very tiny sample jars. Ever the gentle lady, I said "My aim's not this good, I'm going to need a bigger jar."
They said not to worry, I would have to wait till last anyway because they had to find a female observer. Observer? Yes, someone had to directly watch you pee. Well, yeah, I guess I better wait for a female. All the guys went, and it took the better part of the morning. There's very strict security and chain of custody stuff for the pee. Then there were the big tough sailors who suffered performance anxiety and couldn't pee with somebody looking at them. All the while, I'm being told to drink water. They don't want to have to wait for my bladder to fill when the female observer finally shows up.
Oh, and being the first day of class, we are all in our dress uniforms. For the guys, that's no big thing. But three or four hours later, when I am nearly in kidney failure and I will pee in front an entire submarine fleet if they would just let me, it is important. Because I wore my skirt that day, rather than my dress pants which always made me look fat and had bus driver shoes.
According to army regulations, when you were the skirt, you must wear pantyhose. Needless to say, when the female observer finally showed up, I had no modesty, I just wanted to get to the toilet. But those dang pantyhose just would not get off. Would not. I have never hated pantyhose so much in my life and I was just thinking today that one of the many things I am thankful for is that I almost never have to wear pantyhose anymore. Only by nanoseconds did I manage to successfully shed those things and relieve my bursting bladder. The observer was shocked, she probably thought I was having a seizure or something. She had to remind me to actually get a sample because I was so intent on the blissful relief.
In retrospect, I can now see this was the fun sort of hazing that I would endure for the rest of my military career, but I was very dumb then. "Let's make the only female wait for an observer." "Let's give her the little bitty cup, so she has to use a styrofoam coffee cup and then do a liquid transfer." I did get smarter. I didn't drink water till the observer was actually in my presence. I requested a female appropriate sample cup. And I never, ever wore pantyhose to a class indoctrination.
