Do-it-Yourself Daddy Blood Test

Here's a good comedy scene.

A dad has to do a health screening for his company health insurance requirements. But he's too distracted by day-to-day stuff and misses the deadline for the on-site screenings. So he opts for the "in-home screening kit," which consists of a do-it-yourself finger prick blood test that he has to complete and mail in.

This particular dad is petrified by the sight of his own blood, but figures a finger prick test is much better than getting a whole gallon drawn from his arm at the doctor's office--plus, he's in complete control of the finger-prick test--his home turf, his environment.

Unfortunately, he tries to do it first thing in the morning while he's also trying to get his youngest son off to school.

So he tells his son to get in the shower, then he casually opens the blood kit and reads the instructions and lays everything out carefully on the kitchen counter. He re-reads the instructions, just to make sure, because he really doesn't want to do this twice.

Then he carefully opens up the finger-prick thingy and presses his finger FIRMLY on it, like the instructions say, and--HOLY CRAP! It's like getting skewered with some contraption out of "The Hunger Games."

He yanks his finger away, cursing, and sure enough, a little spot of blood forms on his fingertip. So he holds it carefully over the little blood collector--the instructions say you only need four big drops--no problem.

But only one drop comes out, and then it dries up. He tries squeezing it a bit. Nothing. He tries sqeezing it harder, because he REALLY doesn't want to have to do that again. Come on, little blood drop, come on, little blood drop.

It's 7:45. He hasn't showered or shaved. They need to leave in fifteen minutes.

"Ethan, get out of the shower and get dressed!" he shouts.

There is only one drop of blood in the blood collector. Crap.

He notices there is an extra finger-prick thingy. He decides, what the heck, let's just get this over with. He presses down FIRMLY and--HOLY CRAP THAT HURT JUST AS MUCH THE SECOND TIME!

And again, the blood starts to flow--one drop, and...and..dammit, come on, come on, COME ON!

He now has two drops of blood in the blood collector, and two painful tiny holes in his finger. The indicator that's supposed to turn red when you've collected enough blood is still white. It's 8am.

"Dad, aren't we supposed to leave now?"

"Eat a bowl of cereal! Quickly! Then brush your teeth!"

The dad runs to the bedroom and finds his wife's sewing kit. He takes a pin from the kit, hurries into the bathroom, runs scalding hot water over the tip of it, then runs back to the kitchen, where he pokes himself in one of the two existing tiny holes in his middle finger, which REALLY hurts like hell.

The blood flows again. Not much at all this time.

He pokes himself again. COME ON!

"Dad, are we gonna be late? What are you doing?"

He is starting to sweat. If the sweat mixes with the blood it will ruin everything and he'll have to order a whole new test.

He gets one more teeny drop into the blood collector.

It's now 8:15.

"Dad, school starts in like five minutes."

He bends over the kitchen counter furiously squeezing his finger as hard as he can. He is shaking and cursing.

One more jab from the pin. Squeeze! SQUEEZE! SQUEEZE! COME ON!

It drops into the blood collector. The indicator turns red.

He throws on his shorts and a sweatshirt, rushes his kid to school (a teensy bit late). He mails the sealed blood kit to the lab on the way back home, showers, shaves, and is only two hours late to work.

He takes a deep breath. See how easy that was?