Definition Essay

Remollino 1

Steven A. Remollino

Professor Remollino

ENGL 1302.101CL

7 March 2018

The Modern Vampire

phlebotomist

[fluh-bot-uh-mist]

Part of speech noun,

Surgery.

1. a specialist in phlebotomy.

2. a nurse or other health worker trained in drawing venous blood for testing or donation.

Origin of phlebotomist

First recorded in 1650-60; phlebotom(y) + -ist

1350-1400; earlier flebotomye, phlebothomy (< Middle French flebotomie) < Medieval

Latinphlebotomia, Late Latin < Greek phlebotomía (seephlebo-, tomy ); replacing Middle

English fleobotomie< Medieval Latin fleobotomia, variant of phleboto mia

(“Phlebotomist”).

165 0 - 1660

Remollino 2

Dressed in white, she walks down the hall. Pushing a cart filled with glass vials, each

with a different-colored rubber stopper, she moves stealthily from door to door, knocking on

some, but avoiding others. I try to hide from her, sliding under my blanket, leaving only the top

of my head exposed, hoping that if I stay in this concealed position, she will not see me.

Suddenly, I hear a faint tapping on my wooden door, and the sound of nails scratching the

surface. “Hello?” her voice cooed, “May I come in?” I tried to resist, but from past experience, I

knew it would be futile to resist her wily charms. She enters the room. Her cart squeaks a little,

its rubber wheels reacting against the shiny linoleum floor. Bottles clinking together, they

reminded me of the sound of champagne glasses at a fancy function; however, these have a more

dubious purpose. Soon, each one of these glass ampules will be filled with my very life. How

much will she take from me—of me—this time? I notice a length of plastic tubing like the kind

in an aquarium along with a quantity of bandages, rolls of gauze, and tape. She smiles, but I

detect no canine teeth. Perhaps I am not to be her victim this day. My hope fades, however,

when she asks me to hold out my arm and begins tapping on it midway near the elbow. Not

finding what she seeks, she takes the largest rubber band I have ever seen and wraps it just above

the mid-point on my arm. “Make a fist!” she commands, and I comply, not wanting to incur her

wrath. In a series of quick movements, she grabs a handful of the tubes—the ones with the tops

of various colors—and labels them with my vital information, and before I know it, she inserts a

needle attached to a length of rubber tubing into my arm and tells me to pump my hand to get the

sticky liquid flowing. I watch as my ruby liquid leaves my body, filling up tube after tube. Will

her thirst ever end? Then as quickly as she started, she finishes, removing the needle and

Remollino 3

applying gauze and tape to the point of incision. She smiles one last time as she writes some

information on a chart, tidies up her cart, and makes her way toward the door. The door opens,

and she is gone, leaving me to contemplate my fate and wonder what ill-effects I will feel from

this Nosferatu of the night, this stealthy vampire whom I, no doubt, will meet again.

Remollino 4

Works Cited

"Phlebotomist". Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 2018. Dictionary.com.

.

Accessed on 19 March 2019.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/phlebotomist