Trouble at the Blood Bank

(or I'd rather be at the Donut Bank)

I donated blood at the bloodmobile. They use these new automated blood pressure cuffs which are crap. Every time the bus wobbles a little or you shift a little in your chair, it can screw up the reading. The machine inflates the cuff and then releases the pressure a little bit at a time. He put the cuff on me, it blew up, then released and he announced that he didn't get a reading. He put a different cuff on and the machine blew it up very tightly. I don't know if it was pinching something but it hurt and not just a little. The pressure was being released and I was gritting my teeth and squeezing my eyes closed, waiting for some relief. It got to the point where the pain was almost doable and then the cuff blew up again. It will do this if it thinks it missed getting a reading. Now it was hurting bad again. I was squeezing my eyes tight and trying to relax, but it hurt so damn much. Never had a blood pressure cuff feel this awful. Psst. Psst. Psst. The machine was slowly letting the air out. I was trying to picture a pretty meadow to make myself calm down. Where was the nurse during all this? He might have been asleep. He might have been completely unable to read the obvious body language clues (frowning, tensing of muscles, eyes squeezed shut, grunting noises) of a person who was hurting. I don't know because I had my eyes shut. I wasn't saying anything in an attempt to be brave. Finally the pressure got down to a bearable range. I let out a sigh of relief. My body relaxed a little. Then the cuff reinflated to a tightness that threatened to sever me at the elbow. My whole body jerked. I was picturing Jesus coming to get me. I could take it no more. I clawed at the cuff and declared loudly that this was too much! The nurse removed the cuff, but didn't seem all that concerned that it was hurting me so bad. He put a different cuff on me, way down on my lower arm. The machine blew it up. He asked me if that hurt. I said no, this was the normal discomfort of having your pressure checked. The machine finally got a reading. Halleluia! 128/88.  What? My blood pressure is never that high, especially that bottom figure. I blame it on the stupid machine and my fight against its strangling, biting cuff from hell! Then he took my temp and pulse. Both high. Pulse of 93 and temp of 99.2. Gee wonder why? Ya know, this is not the first time the machine has had to try 2 or 3 times to get a reading. Human being used to do it just fine on the first try. Can we all agree that robots shouldn't be taking our blood pressure?