I still want my lollipop

So what is the perfect lunchtime activity for a dreary, dull, Coldplay-album-beige day such as this? Why, a visit to the Girlie Doctor, of course! Just the routine check-up, but as every reader with two X's knows, this is the most unholy of routine check-ups. I'm consequently typing with a gimpy, Band-Aided middle left finger, but on the upside, I just found out that my platelets are pretty much rock stars. This information comes courtesy of nice little blonde Minnesotan finger-pricking nurse, whose world I may or may not have shattered when she told me to look at a wall of baby photos to distract myself from the bloody-prickly-ickiness. "It's a shame I don't like babies," I said in a fit of pure knee-jerk reaction. "Well, it usually works," she mumbled. Not with this one, Prickly Nurse! Meet your match!

As I was saying this morning, (pre-humiliating-routine-checkup,) they really need to reinstate the lollipop system with doctor visits, because I'm having a harder and harder time going if there's no incentive at the end other than a plain beige Band Aid (also to be reinstated: festive Band Aids). With this in mind, I stopped by Jamba Juice for a reward on the way back to work and was promptly handed this:



A berry-granola-breakfasty-thingie FOR FREE. Now, handing a writer some free food that's not wrapped in cellophane (or--let's face it--that is, for that matter) is akin to giving him or her a pat on the back and saying "Buck up, Champ. Even if your publication goes all CBS or Star Tribby on you and find yourself laid off as a victim of the terrible state of the media, there's still the occasional, nutritious bit of free food in the world so you probably won't starve or have to write computer manuals just to eat."

So, regardless of the fact that it was just a really thick granola-littered smoothie suffering under a banana dictatorship, I ate it all up. Yum!