Someone obviously didn't get the memo.

DOCTOR: …I VANT to THUCK ya BLOOD! You know who that is! I VANT to THUCK ya BLOOD-- You do not know who that is?

LIZ: Um…I don’t know?

DOCTOR: Dracula. The one who needs blood.

LIZ: OH! Now I get it!

DOCTOR: I VANT to THUCK ya BLOOD!

LIZ: I get it.

DOCTOR: It is important we do your blood work. It will take five minutes and then after the screenings we will know. With the possibility-- Cancer-- It is better to find out now…to be sure…
now, not later. To treat as soon as possible.

LIZ: So you’re serious?

DOCTOR: Let me put it to you like this. If you do not do the blood work, the cancer screening, I will not see you. I will… take your chart to one of the other doctors in the hospital and they will decide what to do, not me.

LIZ: Okay, okay.

DOCTOR: Do not forget! I NEED BLOOD!

LIZ: I won’t.

                        Q. What would you do if your doctor told you he thought you might have cancer?
                       
                             A. I don’t know what you would do but I know what I would do.

I took careless mega strides and mobbed out of the hospital. I'm sure I looked like a pissed-off, overgrown, super-villain as I pushed past everyone and everything in my path. Anger flooded my thought process and drowned out anything else in my mind to the point that I completely forgot to do my blood work before I fled the scene. The sea of cars in the parking lot added to my overwhelmed emotions and I couldn’t remember where I parked. After storming around the parking lot I finally found the right car. Even if I never found it, it wouldn’t have mattered because I was reeling in fury and could’ve managed to walk home solely on the energy volts that electrocuted throughout my body, no problem.

I unlocked the car door and swung it open the way misunderstood teenagers fling objects around when they‘re frustrated at their parents, frustrated with the world. Then I plopped down into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut so I could sulk in privacy.

My eyes glared at the mediocre sized building in front of me. The evil eye I shot at the hospital was childish but it was the only way I felt vindicated from the news I just received. Though it wasn’t the hospital’s fault, it didn’t matter to me. All I knew was that someone or something had to know how I felt about the matter.

Usually I have an arsenal of words to describe people, places, and things in life, in my life especially. For that particular visit to the hospital, however, I had but only one word to define the experience.

This is some bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit.

I needed some relief, anything, so I grabbed my purse off the floorboard of the car and rummaged through it until I found a pack of Marlboro Smooths. Before I lit the cancer stick I ran it underneath my nose, closed my eyes and inhaled the freshness of its menthol vapors. The first drag I took tasted like heaven and the nicotine released most of my mind and body’s tension.

With my memory relaxed and loosened my brain was free to wander and I recalled an event I’d nearly forgotten from my early teen years.

I was 14 years old and living in Oklahoma with my parents. I had my own bedroom and when it stormed I’d open my bedroom windows to let in the fragrance of the rain. Back then I was going through my romance era, a romantic phase. Romance with no one exclusively except for myself. My room screamed solitude and was littered with numerous candles, antique Victorian décor and ceramic angel/cherub figurines.

One grey sky afternoon I sat on the carpeted floor of my bedroom and stared into an old metal frame mirror. Looking at my reflection forced introspection and I suddenly decided what I wanted to do with my life.

I want to be famous.

Upon that realization I ran out of my bedroom and into the bathroom where I found something sharp; a safety pin; and returned to my room quickly. I placed the pin on my ivory white bed stand and pulled out a pen and notebook from underneath my bed. Then I ripped a sheet of paper out from the notebook and placed the paper on the night stand.

What happened next is almost too embarrassing to admit.

I proceeded to write a contract out with the devil. The outline was simple. The devil would agree to help me become famous in my lifetime and in exchange for the devil’s aid, I would surrender my soul to him upon my death. Why would I need it after I died anyway? I thought. To make the deal official, I pricked my finger and signed the contract in blood. Once the blood dried, I folded up the paper contract and placed it underneath my mattress.

It remained there for three years.

I’d forgotten about the contract until I moved out of my parents house when I turned 17 years old. At first I didn't know what I had uncovered as I pulled the mattress off of my bed and I almost tossed the contract in the trash. Once I recognized what I was holding, I unfolded it and read my sacrilegious vow again. My signed-in-blood signature was still clearly legible so I figured it was still legal and binding and I wondered when the Devil was going to pay up on his end of the bargain.

Since that day when I was 14 years old and decided what I wanted to do with my life, I never wasted a single moment thinking about the latter part of the contract; the day I’d have to pay up on my end. I never thought about it it, that is, until the day my doctor asked me for a sample of my blood to examine, because he thought I might have cancer.

But that can’t be right because I’m not famous yet. The contract clearly states that I have to be famous in my lifetime, not posthumously, after my death. So if I die before I’m famous, that whole giving-my-soul-to-Satan thing is null and void.

The answer to my possible diagnosis became clear. It was wrong, and someone obviously didn’t get the memo about the contract.