This week has been exhausting so far.

The other day I was at the drug store, looking around for a few assorted items and taking advantage of the $5.99 Diet Pepsi two-fours that they were offering, and I saw the little blood pressure kiosk off in the corner.

I love those things. I am instantly attracted to anything that’s automated and informative, lush with the opportunity to learn something without having to endure tiresome human contact. Laden with pamphlets about cardio-vascular health, surrounded by charts detailing how many calories different exercises would burn, the blood pressure booth beckoned to me. Oh, the only-slightly-weathered plush vinyl seat! Lo, the digital readouts for both systolic and diastolic pressure, glowing ominously red! Swoon, the informative charts describing ranges of pressures, detailing which is most optimal and which indicates a likely and immediate demise!

Plus a big red button to start the whole thing off. How does a person resist that kind of thing?

Exactly: You can’t.

The funny thing is that I didn’t feel even slightly weird about sitting down in the booth. I should probably have felt self-conscious or a little stupid about it, considering that every other time I’ve been to that drug store, the seat was always being used by little kids whose parents needed somewhere to dump them, or by elderly customers who needed someplace to sit down and quietly fart. While I’m sure that neither of those parties are especially interested in an automated kiosk’s assessment of their hypertension — little kids being hyper in more ways than numbers can count, and old people being so aware of their blood pressure that they’ve probably got a constant digital readout of it running on a heads-up display on their BluBlockers — they still seem less out of place climbing all over it than I did, and yet there I sat, smiling pleasantly and reading the instructions with alarm. The more I read, the more references to “extreme caution” and “contact a doctor immediately” I kept picking up.

WARNING, the blood pressure cuff told me. THESE CUFFS ARE DESIGNED FOR EXTREMELY LARGE ARMS. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU ATTEMPT TO FORCE YOUR ARM INTO THE CUFF.

Huh. Not exactly a warm hug, but how scary could this actually be?

DOING SO, the cuff went on to add, CAN RESULT IN NUMBNESS OR EVEN MILD TO SEVERE PAIN.

That’s enough to give you pause, isn’t it? Not so much seeing a warning that doing something stupid will hurt you, which I think is now legally required to be printed on every flat surface that will hold ink, but that it requires such a broad range of injury. Mild to severe pain. As if somewhere there were lab technicians who had to evaluate exactly the levels of discomfort that can result from oversized people jamming themselves into an automated blood pressure cuff, and then being forced to articulate it in five words or less.

Engineer #1: Okay, thanks for coming out today. We’re just going to be doing some capacity testing on this blood pressure kiosk before we release it to the public.

Engineer #2: So just go ahead and insert your arm in the cuff, and we can get underway.

Volunteer: I– ugh! I can’t seem to — ungh! — fit my arm in there!

Engineer #1: Well, uh, that’s actually what we’re testing. You see, we’re trying to find out exactly what someone with VERY LARGE– that’s right, isn’t it, Phil?

Engineer #2: Yep, that’s what the specs say: VERY LARGE.

Volunteer: I don’t think my arms are all that lar–

Engineer #1: Thanks, Phil. Anyway, we need to know how well this system will work on someone with VERY LARGE ARMS.

Volunteer: Okay, well, it’s kind of tight.

Engineer #1: Getting that, Phil? I’m going to start up the machine.

Engineer #2: … very tight … starting up the machine … Got it.

Blood Pressure Machine: Brrrrzzzt. Brrrrrrzzzzzzzt.

Volunteer: (chuckling nervously) Boy, they’re not kidding when they it blood “pressure,” huh? That cuff sure is getting cozy!

Engineer #2: … kidding … pressure … tight cuff. Got it.

Blood Pressure Machine: Brrrrzzzt. Brrrzt. BRRRRRZT.

Volunteer: Uhm, should I be losing feeling in my hand this quickly? It hurts a little, and my fingertips are starting to turn black.

Engineer #1: All perfectly normal, I assure you.

Engineer #2: … tissue death falling within normal parameters … Got it.

Volunteer: Did he just say death? Jesus Christ, I– oh God, all the capillaries on my arm are bursting! I can’t feel anything below my shoulder!

Engineer #1: Please, remain calm. If you panic, you won’t get an accurate blood pressure reading.

Engineer #2: … internal hemmoraging … leading to … inaccurate reading. Got it.

Volunteer: What blood pressue? All of my blood is trapped in my arm!

Engineer #1: Really, if you’re not going to co-operate, this isn’t going to be of any value to our results.

Volunteer: Screw your results! I’m out of here! You can keep the free cosmetics!

(Volunteer exits)

Engineer #2: Well, now what are we going to do? Our subject just walked out the door.

Engineer #1: That’s the least of his worries — he might not feel anything now, but when all that blood drains out of his arms, he’s going to hurt like hell.

Engineer #2: … large arms … will experience … mild to severe pain. Got it.

Engineer #1: Phil, you’re a genius.

Happily, my arms are not that big. I might claim otherwise if I’m in a flexing competition, but that’s just the alcohol talking — and yet, when the automated blood pressure pump starts to close around your bicep, you feel a lot bigger than you ever thought you might.

And, because technology likes to punish us humans for our hubris, the automated pump doesn’t just quickly check the reading and immediately release you from your mild-to-severe discomfort, either. It hangs onto you for a good few seconds, to remind you that you’ve just given over the safety of entire limb to a push-button machine in the least-used corner of a pharmacy, and then ever-so-slowly releases the pressure.

Then, as your sweet, life-giving blood rushes forward to rescue your hand from the brink of death, you’re left with a reading:

142
97

At least, that’s the reading I was left with. I stared at it for a few minutes, attempting to recall everything I could from my 11th-grade education on systolic and disastolic pressure, trying to remember what was which and what they did. I consulted with the charts right below the readings, and then went looking for other charts, because the initial charts were telling me that I had high blood pressure, and that simply could not be the case. And yet there it was.

This probably isn’t going to slay me anytime soon, despite what WebMD tells me about hypertension being a silent killer. I don’t expect that some time in the night I’ll suddenly find myself being muzzled and stabbed by High Blood Pressure, and watch it run out the door with my television as I bleed to death. But it’s enough to nag at me, enough to sit and irritate me when I’m trying to decide what flavor of creamed cheese to apply to my bagel.

I mean, I’m getting to be a crank. I groan when I bend over to pick stuff up off the ground; I noisily cough things up in the morning that would give children screaming nightmares; I go to bed early on Friday nights, because I’m “just plain bushed, and that’s for sure.” But with all of that, this simple thing is enough to make me feel old.

Twenty-five. High blood pressure. I just know what’s going to happen:

I’m not going to be allowed to have Fudg-E-O’s and a handful of Shreddies for breakfast any more, no matter how full they make me. I’m not going to be allowed to drink more cola than water, even if it does keep me more alert. I’m not going to be allowed to heap salt on my food as if I was God heaping snow on the mountaintops, regardless of how much more delicious it makes my fries. I’m not going to be allowed to argue with Sham about keeping up my seven-year not-seeing-a-Doctor streak.

I’m not going to able to act like a kid any more.

Damned automated kiosks. I’m never touching one of those again. They need to add to the warning on that cuff:

WARNING: THESE CUFFS ARE DESIGNED FOR VERY LARGE ARMS. DO NOT FORCE YOUR ARMS INTO THE CUFF. DOING SO WILL RESULT IN MILD TO SEVERE PAIN, AND MAY SHATTER ANY ILLUSIONS YOU HAVE ABOUT YOUR OWN YOUTHFUL VITALITY. IF YOUR CONCEPTIONS OF YOUR OWN HEALTH OR VIGOR ARE IN ANY WAY FRAGILE, CONTINUE ON TO THE SNACK AISLE.

Now that would be compassionate health care.