Thursday, Jul 24, 2008
Providing an adequate sample was not going to be a problem for me, however. Hell, I almost peed in my poly-wool uniform pants while trekking from the airplane to the medical facility. In my condition, I could have filled two plastic cups and then watered the office plants for good measure. Just give me the goddamned plastic cup, I thought to myself, and tell me where I can go to deliver the flood in private.
The bathroom was not a functional one; it was a "pee in the cup only" type of facility. The tiny cell had a bright fluorescent light that bounced off the white walls like sunlight off mirrors. There was no running water in the sink; the toilet bowl held about two cups of strangely colored liquid. Later, Nurse Nancy told me that this was to prevent less scrupulous employees from diluting their urine with water -- water that could help mask cocaine and marijuana and ecstasy and a long list of drugs we might be tempted to ingest before putting on our uniform and driving to the airport for a typical three-day trip. In one of those paranoid moments that we are prepared for by too many "X-Files" episodes and not enough common sense, I felt as if I was being watched. I unzipped my pants anyway, heckled by the ghosts of those who'd aimed and missed before me.
Once the cup was filled, I yelled through the door, asking Nurse Nancy for six or seven more plastic containers. The joke fell upon humorless ears. Hearing no response, I snapped the lid onto the container and carried it from the bathroom in one outstretched hand as if it were a vial of nitroglycerin. Nurse Nancy threw me a disdainful look. She double-sealed the container, placed it inside one-half of a plastic foam mold, covered that half with the other half, wrapped both halves together using a mummylike application of "caution" tape, put the taped mold in a box and put the box in a file cabinet filled with other samples to be picked up by a Federal Express courier later that night.
The following day, a different Fed Ex courier delivered hundreds of plastic foam containers (a collection of samples from airline crew bases across the country) to a secret pee-processing lab somewhere in Nebraska or South Dakota or some equally underpopulated state where a toxic urine spill would cause minimal casualties. Gallons of liquid were analyzed and reanalyzed, the medical technicians testing each sample as if they were forensic pathologists at the onset of a murder trial. My stuff tested negative, thank God. But many days later, one of my colleagues wasn't so lucky.
With a level of efficiency almost unheard of when addressing customer complaints or employee labor issues, the airline anti-drug machinery sprang into action. A base manager was informed of tainted piss. The information was relayed to a supervisor. An employee file was opened and meticulously reviewed. The suspect -- a 5-foot-3, 90-pound Delta Airlines flight attendant without so much as a fart on her record -- had not tested positive, however. She was accused of providing a "diluted" urine sample, the result, she said, of drinking prodigious amounts of bottled water on her inbound flight.
I watched the television screen as this diminutive Japanese-American flight attendant told her story to a Portland, Ore., news anchor. "I come from very strict Japanese family," she said in hesitant English. "I've never even seen drugs." She went on to describe her habit of drinking water, lots of water, whenever she flies. It keeps her from being dehydrated during long hauls to and from Japan. She talked about how Delta terminated her because her urine was "tainted" with water, about how the company refused to grant her a second test, even refused to accept the findings of an independent drug test she took the next day. Her own supervisor -- aware of the employee's seven years of perfect attendance and all the passenger commendation letters -- burst into tears after being forced to dispense the horrific news.
Looking at her tiny 90-pound frame, it was easy to see how even a small amount of water could dilute her urine sample. What I could not see, however, was how a major airline like Delta failed to admit that it had probably made a mistake.
Evian abuse. Apparently it's nothing to piss at.
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