{"id":6821,"date":"2014-03-28T00:00:56","date_gmt":"2014-03-28T04:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=6821"},"modified":"2014-03-28T14:13:57","modified_gmt":"2014-03-28T18:13:57","slug":"needlepoint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/needlepoint\/","title":{"rendered":"NeedlePoint"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NeedlePoint\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The glass door whooshed open, and sunlight slipped in.\u00a0 A smell of chemicals mixed in the air with blood, sweat, and maybe even tears.\u00a0 Dirty footprints marked the tiled floor right up to the mat under the glass window.\u00a0 A pad and pen was ready for the visitor, and she signed in.\u00a0 As she signed her name and time, she grimaced at a broken nail, making a mental note that such a thing had to be fixed and could not be ignored.\u00a0 As she moved away from the glass window, she made a fist so as not to see such a flaw, but then she saw those in the waiting room staring back at her.<\/p>\n

There were only eight chairs.\u00a0 An elderly woman sat in one, staring off into space.\u00a0 A mother with two kids occupied three, and her little kid was a monster.\u00a0 He used the empty chair nearby like you would a pinata, and there was no way in hell that she would sit near him.\u00a0 An overweight man sat in another chair with a magazine shoved in his face, but he had already looked her over, hoping she would sit next to him.\u00a0 And then there was the young woman in a brown coat that was way too large for her, and with a heavy sigh, Ashley sat next to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cBenjamin,\u201d the nurse bellowed, and the overweight man struggled out of his chair.\u00a0 He glanced at Ashley, trying to hide his disappointment, but she saw right through him.\u00a0 \u201cPaperwork?\u201d\u00a0 He broke his gaze with her and handed the impatient nurse the paperwork from the doctor\u2019s office.\u00a0 \u201cJust blood work?\u201d\u00a0 He nodded, and she gestured to the room behind her.\u00a0 But before following him in, she glanced at the clock on the wall over Ashley\u2019s chair.<\/p>\n

Ashley sighed again.\u00a0 She looked down at her black, high heeled shoes and grimaced at the mud on them.\u00a0 There was a bathroom to her right.\u00a0 She could go in there and wash them off, but what was the point?\u00a0 She would just step in mud and dirt again once she walked outside, and then she looked over at brown coat\u2019s boots.\u00a0 Winter was over, and it was spring.\u00a0 Granted, it was raining almost every day now, but who wears boots after winter?\u00a0 Grow up, and get a pair of shoes.\u00a0 But something told her that this woman would rather wear sneakers and live in them, and that thought disgusted Ashley.\u00a0 What a scrub, she thought as she stared at those boots.<\/p>\n

\u201cMary.\u201d\u00a0 The elderly woman snapped out of her trance and hopped out of her seat, trying to escape the little kid bent on destroying the chair.\u00a0 \u201cPaperwork?\u201d\u00a0 She nearly threw it at the nurse, who almost took a step back.\u00a0 \u201cThis way,\u201d and she led the elderly woman inside.\u00a0 And just as she did, the overweight man struggled to walk past them, and with one last glance at Ashley, he disappeared outside.<\/p>\n

Ashley checked her watch.\u00a0 It was almost one, and the lab would be closing soon.\u00a0 She had better things to do than waste her Saturday morning, and she was sure that the mother with her two kids was thinking the same thing.\u00a0 But not brown coat.\u00a0 She would probably shove cereal in her mouth and enjoy the Saturday morning cartoons.\u00a0 She barely touched the magazines beside her, and she did not seem like a newspaper reader.\u00a0 She probably was a Facebook addict, evicted from Myspace, and living the social media life because she didn\u2019t have one.\u00a0 And this was why Ashley despised the internet.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t need it to have a life.\u00a0 Sure, she couldn\u2019t live without her cell phone, but she didn\u2019t give a shit about Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn.\u00a0 They were for losers, losers like brown coat, and it was pathetic.\u00a0 And then she saw that broken nail, and it irritated her even more.\u00a0 She had to get that fixed.\u00a0 Instead, she was stuck here, sitting next to this woman, and waiting to be called, and she checked her watch again.<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid.\u201d\u00a0 The little kid started to howl, and his brother stopped playing with his cell phone.\u00a0 He was barely thirteen, and he looked at his mother, who was occupied with her own cell phone.\u00a0 \u201cDavid!\u201d\u00a0 He lifted his brother up into his arms and carried him over to the nurse.\u00a0 He handed her the paperwork, and she looked from him to the one in his arms.\u00a0 \u201cDavid?\u201d\u00a0 The little kid whimpered.\u00a0 \u201cThis way,\u201d and she led them inside.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel bad for her,\u201d brown coat muttered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel bad for you,\u201d Ashley thought, and then she heard the kid scream.\u00a0 She flinched, but the mother continued playing on her cell phone.\u00a0 \u201cJesus,\u201d and she just shook her head.\u00a0 \u201cSome people just can\u2019t be bothered,\u201d she thought, and then she realized that she was last.\u00a0 Brown coat was going before her, and she would be stuck waiting on her.\u00a0 Maybe, she could scratch her name off the pad, but when she looked over at the window, she realized that the pad was gone.\u00a0 The nurse had taken it while she was occupied with this scrub beside her.\u00a0 \u201cDamn it,\u201d she muttered, and brown coat finally looked at her.\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t look at me,\u201d Ashley thought.\u00a0 \u201cDo not dare look at me,\u201d and the little kid screamed again.<\/p>\n

The nurse walked the two boys out and gave the mother a disgusted look.\u00a0 The mother couldn\u2019t care less.\u00a0 She slipped into her coat, and her barely thirteen-year-old son put the coat on his brother.\u00a0 He started to slip his own coat on when his mother took his brother\u2019s hand and walked toward the door.\u00a0 He hurried to follow them, but before he disappeared outside, he too glanced over Ashley.\u00a0 And she saw right through him.<\/p>\n

\u201cRachel and Ashley.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d\u00a0 Ashley stood up from her chair, bumping into brown coat.\u00a0 \u201cExcuse me,\u201d but brown coat didn\u2019t answer her.\u00a0 \u201cYou want us to go in there together?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a date, honey,\u201d and she took brown coat\u2019s paperwork.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s time to close.\u00a0 You want to do this now, or during the week?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow,\u201d and Ashley handed her the paperwork.\u00a0 \u201cJust blood work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is just blood work today,\u201d and she led the two of them inside.\u00a0 \u201cRachel, the chair on the left.\u00a0 Ashley, the chair on the right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ashley was surprised to see a male nurse standing there.\u00a0 There were two of them the whole entire time that she was waiting.\u00a0 She wanted to rip into them.\u00a0 How could they make everyone wait, if there were two of them?\u00a0 It was a Saturday.\u00a0 She had places to go, things to do, and they took one person at a time?\u00a0 Are you kidding me, and on top of that, the male nurse was going to draw her blood?\u00a0 Oh, this shit was going to hurt, and then she realized that brown coat was staring at her.\u00a0 \u201cCould you draw a curtain between us?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you see a curtain, honey?\u201d\u00a0 Why did brown coat get the female nurse, but then again, she was a bitch.\u00a0 Maybe, it would hurt more coming from her, so she was lucky.\u00a0 And she smiled at that.\u00a0 \u201cSomething funny,\u201d the female nurse asked as she tied a rubber band around brown coat\u2019s fat arm.<\/p>\n

\u201cNope,\u201d and the male nurse did the same, wrapping her arm with a rubber band.\u00a0 \u201cAt least, I\u2019m in shape,\u201d she thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cTiny pinch,\u201d they both said together, and Ashley looked away.\u00a0 So did brown coat, and they stared at each other.\u00a0 They both flinched and shut their eyes as the needle buried into their skin.\u00a0 \u201cAlmost done,\u201d the two of them said together again, and they both snapped off the rubber band.\u00a0 And Ashley and brown coat continued to stare at each other with tears in their eyes.\u00a0 \u201cDone,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinally.\u201d\u00a0 Ashley didn\u2019t mean to say that out loud, but she did.\u00a0 And you know what?\u00a0 She didn\u2019t care.\u00a0 Fuck them, she thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cPress down,\u201d they said together, and Ashley smiled, thinking of them as nothing more than robots, programmed to suck out their blood.\u00a0 \u201cAll done,\u201d and they backed away.\u00a0 Mission completed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you,\u201d and Ashley hopped out of her chair, hoping to leave before brown coat, but they were walking out together again.\u00a0 \u201cExcuse me,\u201d and she hurried to cut off brown coat.\u00a0 \u201cSuccess,\u201d she thought, but then she tripped on her heel.\u00a0 And brown coat moved ahead of her.\u00a0 \u201cDamn it.\u00a0 I am not having a good day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave a good day, honey.\u201d\u00a0 The female nurse was now standing behind her.\u00a0 \u201cBe careful out there.\u00a0 Rain\u2019s coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ashley forced a smile and then walked toward the entrance doors.\u00a0 She took a breath, calmed herself down, stood up straight, and walked outside.\u00a0 Brown coat had disappeared, but she didn\u2019t care.\u00a0 She was done here, done being surrounded by stupid people that did not appreciate her, and then she looked down at her nail.\u00a0 It had to be fixed.\u00a0 It could not be ignored, so on to the nail place.\u00a0 After that, the mall.\u00a0 She needed to shop.\u00a0 She needed to feel alive again.\u00a0 She needed new shoes, and she got into her car, driving as fast as she could away from this horrible place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The glass door whooshed open, and sunlight slipped in. A smell of chemicals mixed in the air with blood, sweat, and maybe even tears. Dirty footprints marked the tiled floor right up to the mat under the glass window. A pad and pen was ready for the visitor, and she signed in. As she signed her name and time, she grimaced at a broken nail, making a mental note that such a thing had to be fixed and could not be ignored. As she moved away from the glass window, she made a fist so as not to see such a flaw, but then she saw those in the waiting room staring back at her.<\/p>\n

There were only eight chairs. An elderly woman sat in one, staring off into space. A mother with two kids occupied three, and her little kid was a monster. <\/p>\n

READ MORE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":6974,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,218,200,219],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6821"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6821"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6978,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6821\/revisions\/6978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}