Weird/Awkward Encounters in the Life of Melissa

This post was inspired by this post courtesy of the awkward happenings of Ty @ TyRunMan
-At YMCA C, I always use a half locker. When I was there for the indoor tri the other week, I had more stuff than normal. After the 10 minute swim, we had a 10 minute transition time to change out of our swimsuits. 10 minutes is a good chunk of time, but its not enough to lollygag in the locker room. I didn’t want my wet swimsuits to get the rest of my stuff wet, so I found a top half locker open close to mine and threw them in there and went to the spin studio. When my ½ hour on the bike, and 20 mins on the treadmill was done, I made my way back to the locker room to collect my things. When I got to my spot, there was an employee mopping the area and muttering about people leaving their wet swim suits in the lockers and that they drip water all over the floor. I open my locker and act nonchalant about it, nodding at the end of every sentence or so that she’s going on. But then she starts opening lockers to see where the water is coming from and finds my swimsuits. She makes a comment “and they’ll probably never comes back for these either!”. Now, I have a REALLY bad poker face, so any normal person would be able to tell that those were mine, but she just kept on rolling. She put them on the bench and I knew she was going to walk out with them after she was done mopping, which was imminent, so I said “uh, actually….those are mine”.

And I told her the reason I had put them in there, etc. So she sits down on the bench, next to my wet swimsuits, and has a full 5 minute conversation with me about the triathlon and triathlons in general. I had everything packed up and was walking out the door of the locker room when she calls out to me – HEY! GREAT WORKOUT TODAY!!! Haha, uh, thanks lady that I just met who wanted to strangle me 5 minutes before!

 -I give blood about every 8 weeks or so. I think its really important because if I were to need blood in an emergency situation, I would definitely want it! Luckily, the “bloodmobile” shows up at our workplace once every 8 weeks so I can give blood, have cookies for breakfast, then saunter in to work a little bit late. My iron levels are usually my only issue and as long as I eat spinach and some red meat in the days before I give blood, I usually have a flawless experience. Until Tuesday. I filled out the survey and sat down to do my little iron level finger prick, blood pressure, and temperature. My iron level was 12.8! (has to be 12.5) and the lady put the blood pressure cuff on my and started that machine going and went to put the thermometer in my mouth. She did, but it just hit me in the back of the mouth really funny and I fought the urge to cough so hard, but I did end up taking it out of my mouth and coughing. Then she was all up in my grill and asked me at least 5 times “Are you SURE you don’t have a cold?!?”. Yeah, lady, I’m sure you just jammed that in the back of my mouth weird! But this whole time I’m coughing and responding to her, the blood pressure machine is still going! Then I start laughing because that has to be such a crazy blood pressure reading. She had me do my temperature again – I got to hold the thermometer this time! And I asked if I could do the blood pressure again because I KNEW it said something crazy. She said I didn’t have to do the blood pressure part again, that it was fine. Well, I looked at what she wrote on the paper – 166/93!!!!! Then I was sort of mad because when I log on to the website next and it shows your blood pressure stats from the past year of giving blood, it’s going to show my blood pressure going down every time – and spiking up this time.

 I should have taken that as a sign that today was not my day to give blood! So the phlebotomist was a younger than the rest and I did my usual, stare off into space while she's doing the thing w/her needle. And this time, it hurt while going in, never a good sign! So I’m sitting there, squeezing the little thing and the machine starts beeping a few minutes later. I’m usually fast at filling the bag, so I thought I was done. Nope, whatever she did, my blood was starting to clot and I wasn’t filling the bag. So that scenario happened about 3 times and 3 different people came over to “help” reposition the needle/my arm/whatever they could do. I don’t think they even got a pint out of me. At least I got cookies after that! And an ice pack. And now a nice bruise…

-I was really happy that they changed one of our swim practices for our tri group to 6am instead of 7am (I have to be at work at 8). That means I get 2 swim practices a week! Yay! So I go this morning (about 5 minutes late…) and I get to the front door, which is an automatic opening door. But it doesn’t open. So I do my best not to run into it and see a little sign that basically says “sorry our door is broken, we have called someone about it”. But it doesn’t say what to do/where to go. When they were re-doing the from doors over the summer they had us go in the gym door, but that didn’t look promising either/no sign. So I walk back over the front door and stare at it for a second and then this guy (thankfully!) comes out and pries the doors apart, we trade places and then he closes them. I said “soooo…you just have to ‘superman’ it?!?” and he gave a chuckle at my socially awkward comment. Then there was no one at the front desk, so I swiped my own card and walked in the “out” door. I was so weirded out by that experience that I forgot a towel and later had to walk back into the hallway to get one in my wet swimsuit. What a morning!

All in all...still not as crazy as Ty having a human obstacle in the pool the other week!