User Error

Oct 17,10

I have a positive pregnancy test sitting in my cupboard at home. It is the one and only positive I have ever had in the last six years, so it a novelty, and I don’t want to chuck it just yet. It does not mean I am pregnant, it's just the test I had to take the day after my HCG trigger shot to ensure that the HCG was really in my system. And even that was not a positive on the first go round.

The morning of the test I woke up full of first morning pee, took out the test and hosed it, then set it on the countertop, then read the directions. Yes. Exactly opposite of what any smart, careful person would do. But I am not careful. I think I know it all, especially about peeing on sticks. The directions did not even have words, just pictures - Pictures clearly showing a woman peeing in a cup then putting 3 tiny drops of urine on the test window. BAH. So I never got a positive or a negative, just three completely flooded out windows staring back at me. I told H it was inconclusive, and went on my merry way to work. Like a smart careful person, H called the nurse to tell her the inconclusive status. She said I’d have to just go buy an over the counter pregnancy test and try again. She was baffled why it didn’t work and asked if H thought it was the test or if it was user error – likely a polite way of saying is your wife a heathen who ruined my test by hosing it down like a Labrador to a fire hydrant? H called me back and asked me if it was user error, and I confessed. He laughed so hard I had to cover the earpiece of my work phone so my whole office didn’t hear about the urine antics. All I can think is “wow” – pregnancy tests are sort of gross and un-lady like in the first place, but I even thought I was Joe Cool about that – and had to have a humbling pee lesson. Oh man. Please tell me this is bottom.