Photo Credit: © Can Stock Photo / michaeljung
My annual physical showed signs of anemia—enough that the doc wanted me to have a unit of iron pumped in—so I was briefly hooked up to an IV. A day or two later, I returned for a follow-up. Vie, the lady who took my blood this time, was a bit older than the other workers who were skipping around the place. She barely spoke until I invited conversation, and even then she was hesitant. “Why you here?” she finally chortled, like an old prison inmate. “Anemia,” I said. “Blood is low on iron.” I explained my numbers and where they needed to be, and she continued her work, extracting six vials of blood. She held one up to the light and said, “Yeah, you’re good—your number should be up a full point.” I smiled. “You can tell that by sight?” She smiled. The male nurse came in and asked for the samples. She handed him three of the six tubes. Then she settled into the chair across from me. I said, “Why didn’t you give him all six vials?” She smiled again, looking out the window. “You’ll thank me in a minute.” Ten minutes later, the nurse returned and said, “Hey, sorry, Vie, we’re gonna need three more vials.” She handed him the three she had previously drawn with a smile, and he shook his head. “Didn’t want to tap this poor man’s arm again,” she said. “You’re the best, Vie,” he said as he left the room. Then he looked at me and said, “Hey, the stat tests show you’re up by a full point.” I looked at Vie and said, “Hey, you’re really something!” She pushed her cart out of the room and said, “Yeah, I used to be. Hope you feel better.”
Skilled Carpenter
I asked my father-in-law, who made his living as a finish carpenter, to have a look at the steps that lead to the second floor in of my house. They’re wooden steps, and there are many of them. It seemed like every night I tripped slightly on this one step. Perhaps the step needed to be shaved a little; perhaps, 90 years ago when the house was built, that step wasn’t set perfectly square, and that oversight was causing my constant misstep. He looked at the step and asked if anyone else seemed to always trip at that spot. I couldn’t recall when anyone had. He asked if I hit the step with and without shoes. Again, I was unsure. A few of the kids were over, and he asked them to go up and down the steps, and they did without difficulty. Per his instruction, I mentally kept track of every time I tripped whenever I was on the steps. But now that I was concentrating, I never tripped again. Time passed and my tripping began again—always more frequent with my work shoes on at the end of the day. Was it the step, the shoes, the construction? No, he determined it was where my body began to tire and I didn’t lift my leg as high going up the stairs after a day’s work. It was actually one of three possible steps, simply a tripping point when I ran out of steam. I think he knew the minute I asked him to look into it, but he let me go through the “steps” to see the light.
Successful Athlete
Bruce was a kid on our high-school wrestling team who was somewhat skilled at the sport, but he had a signature move that wrestlers refer to as “the ankle pick,” which he could do better than anyone else. The move was lightning fast, and he would shoot in with such accuracy that his opponents were always surprised to find themselves on their backs. The move employs a face-to-face lock-up, and then the lock is drawn downwards until the aggressor is in low range of the opponent’s feet. At this point, the aggressor grabs the foot by the heel and pulls it to him, putting the opponent on his back. When done as quickly as Bruce did it, the move threw the other guy completely off his game, and he was typically just glad to get it over with since most other wrestlers were immediately pinned. Well, one night, Bruce had been scouted, so his opponent knew what to expect. As the match began and Bruce went for the lock-up, his opponent threw both feet back so he was leaning into Bruce at an angle, making his ankles inaccessible. They stood like this for the whole first round, circling each other in this lock-up, neither wrestler bringing his feet forward enough to give the other something to grab. The second round began, and again both started circling in the lock-up. Finally a moment of inspiration hit. Bruce exaggerated one of the rocking movements in the lock-up and spun right out of the bind. Now, the opponent’s ankles were accessible, but from the wrong side due to the way the other guy was standing. The reverse ankle pick put the kid right on his face, which stunned him. A quick rollover and Bruce had the pin. It took a while for Bruce to envision it working and then perform it, but once done, it was executed beautifully. He had added a new move to his bag of tricks.