Pee in the Cup

The last time I applied for a job a million years ago, no one asked me to pee in a cup.
For those of you who are retired and missed this phenomenon, now days, if you want a job with almost any big company, you have to submit to a drug test.
There was a time many moons ago, when you could look for a job without anyone even once recommending that you head to the potty. In fact, in those ancient days, people considered it poor etiquette to even mention the potty during an interview.
We even had euphemisms in the unlikely event that the subject could not possibly be avoided.
Like powder room. What a lovely concept!
Of course, powder was an extremely feminine luxury and putting powder on your nose was considered a complex and perplexing mystery.
Nothing at all like peeing in a cup. Which is pretty vulgar.
If you ask me, peeing in a cup is an incentive for keeping the job you’ve got.
While I was looking for a job, I applied at some temp agencies. I can write, but apparently I can’t type, so they never called me.
I was relieved. Not in the euphemistic sense.
Young people coming out of college seem to assume that peeing in a cup is just part of the process of landing their first big job. They have such good attitudes about the whole thing.
I try to tell myself that I should emulate their example, change with the times, accept what I cannot change.
And I will, too. Right after I write this column.
My goal is to write something that employers can give to their prospective employees along with all the proper medical forms, to acknowledge that, yes, the new system is really icky.
Imagine how happy I was to learn that peeing in the cup happens at a lab and not at the work place.
Picture yourself handing a cup of pee to your boss and you have the general concept. Try not to think about it.
Cathy Primer Krafve, aka Checklist Charlie, lives and writes with a Texas twang. Comments are invited at checklistcharlie.blogspot.com.