Just don't mess with my coffee.

Last week I bolstered my courage and made a doctor's appointment for Monday morning at 8:30.
The receptionist first suggested 8:00 but that just sounded too early for me. In hind sight that wouldn't have been a problem, since at that time maybe I wouldn't have been one of the two patients scheduled for exactly the same time.
Why do they do that?
The other person was there with her two little rug rats slightly before me, so I let her go on in. It's not like there's more than one doctor, and the waiting room is miniscule, so we're all going to see the same guy.
Anyway, blood tests were in order, so that was going to take place this morning, or any time of my choosing for that matter. See, this doesn't happen at the doctor's office, but instead you have to go to the parochiehuis, which is a little farther up the main drag of Delden.
Now, the "parochiehuis" is a bit hard to explain, but suffice to say that these days, it's being used as a community centre.
At least that's as near as I can figure out.
In the little village where I spent the first ten years of my life, I think we would have referred to it as the "parsonage", but "parochial house" is also an English term, as you can see here.

Kinda handy that they have these websites, since that certainly saves me a lot of bla bla...
Educational, isn't it?
As any of you who have taken part in this blood letting ritual will surely know, there is to be no "food or drink" for the previous what? 12 hours? Whatever.
It means muggins here has to peddle his arse into town sans morning coffee.
Breakfast I can almost do without.
Coffee, not so sure.
Since the start time was actually 8:15 it did me no good whatsoever to show up at 8:00 o'clock, so I had a little time to kill.
Cr*p!
I just wanted to get it over with.
I had my little piece of paper with me where the doctor had ticked off the types of tests we going to be doing, and that was all fine and dandy. However the notion of riding around town with a urine sample in my bike bag somehow just didn't work for me.
Just the same, went to Dink's for a couple things and thankfully , the gangs of urine sample thieves had decided to give Delden a pass this morning.

Boy was I relieved.

(hope you got that little pun there)

Of course by the time I get back there at around 8:40, there are a few other sad sacks waiting to get pierced. One poor old guy was told he was in the wrong place altogether, and needed to head off to the hospital. He looked like he had barely been able to make it there, so I'm not sure how he was going to make out.
Happily, the lady who does the deed is a cheery enough person and is really good at her job. There's nothing worse than ending up with someone who simply doesn't know what they're doing. Especially when it comes to poking you in the arm with a sharp object.
She even gave me a spare pee bottle, "for your house".

Ok then.