I was walking near my office a week or so ago talking to a guy I work with on the phone when I saw an RV advertising free aids tests and free condoms. For whatever reason I interrupted our conversation and asked him if I should get an AIDS test. My rationalization was that it was free and people are always saying you (collectively) should get tested. Anyway, really my rationalization was that it was free, free condoms, and it said UPenn on the back so it was at least reputable.
I hang up with my friend and head over to the RV. There were two youngish people outside of the RV with clipboards and UPenn polo shirts on taking information from people. When I say people, I really mean they are just standing there about to take information from me. I tell them I am interested in getting tested so they take some basic information; name, address, age etc. The dude is then like, alright lets get into the van and get some more information and get you tested. Opens the door and I step in.
The place is a dump. I almost backed out as soon as I walked in. I was more scared of getting AIDS at that moment than I had ever been in my entire life. It wasn't set up like a clinic or anything. It was literally just a regular RV inside. Brown velor seats, brown carpet, kitchenette, living room, bedroom. It was like an RV you'd see in bad porn. The kind where they pick up the chick off the street somewhere. The guy is like "have a seat." I almost said "that's okay". I was wearing my good work clothes. Didn't want to get dirty. To give you an idea how dirty it was, there were burger king paper bags on top of the oven. I was beginning to think this was a bad idea. Now I was 99.9 percent sure I didn't have AIDS, but now I was second guessing if I was mentally prepared if this was going to be the day I was going to be told I have AIDS. And was this the way I wanted to be told? In a dirty RV by a guy I am pretty sure isn't even close to being a doctor parked on the corner of the gayborhood? Anyway, I told myself that it'd be okay and went through with it.
The guy proceeds to tell me what he is going to be testing me for today. "We're going to draw some blood and test you for AIDS and Chlamydia" (i think he said chlamydia, but he named a bunch of stds and I wasn't really paying attention...all of the ones you have ever heard of) "And we are going to do a urine test that will test you for basically everything else." As he is telling me this, a stoned homeless guy comes in asking for a pee cup. The guy gives him his cup... tells him to walk back there and "just fill it up a little bit" That's when I asked if I could just do the blood test. No way was I going back there where this guy just went.
Anyway, he proceeds to ask me all these questions about my sex life. Or lack of sex life. That's when I realized I live a boring life. He was asking me about things I would have never even thought of doing or even knew people did. Pretty sick stuff. He takes my blood, and drips a little into this little plastic device that looks like a pregnancy test. I say "that's pretty cool that you can get the results in ten minutes... I would have thought you would have to wait a while for lab results." "yeah man, it's crazy right...remember when it used to take three weeks?" "Nah. Like I said, this is my first time getting tested."
Alright, now if you head back over there so and so will give you your results. I started getting a little bit nervous at this point. She asks me more sexually explicit questions and then quizzes me on how much I know about STDS. Turns out I got all but one question right but I intentionally got that answer wrong. (you can ask me about that one personally) She goes through a list of questions: "have you ever paid for sex? No. Have you ever been paid for sex? No. "Have you been drunk or high in the last six months? Yes. Have you had sex in the last six months and been drunk or high? No. (it's been a while geez) Done cocaine? No. Done heroin? No. PCP? No. Syrup? No...wait. Syrup? Syrup is dangerous? Wait, is that like.."No, we ain't talkin bout Aunt Jemima.." I was like oh damn, for a second I thought I could get an STD from syrup. Phew. No.. never even heard of syrup. wow. It was an eye opener.
Make a short story long, I am disease free. But as I was leaving the RV, I took two steps down and caught my shirt on the door latch and ripped my shirt sleeve a little. "Ah! damn it..." "Are you okay?" "Yeah, it's cool, I'm clean." She didn't really appreciate that joke.
