I am my father's daughter

Had my yearly doctor's appointment last week. Fussed about this for a while beforehand and sure enough, my one fear came true.

We go through the usual process - height (still 5 feet 11.5 inches tall), weight, look in the mouth, ears, eyes, and then it comes........I see him reach for the damn cuff thing that squeezes your arm really tight and feeds him numbers that I don't understand - the blood pressure TEST.

This is what happens in my head next:

"Relax Darc, relax, breathe, breathe....don't hold your breath...oh, man I can feel the blood coursing through my body. Was I just holding my breath? Okay take a big deep breath. Was that too deep? Oh, it's going to be too high. Think about slowing down your breath. Relax...relax...relax."

The test is now finished and the doctor fixes me with a funny look.

"Was it too high?" I ask all innocently.

"Yes," he says, "Did you have problems when you were pregnant?" he asks.

So I proceed to try and explain to him about how I get really nervous before my blood pressure is taken because I worry that it will be too high and that I feel like it's like failing a "test".

He looks at me funny. I can only assume he's thinking the same thing any normal person does which is: Why does she think it's a test you can fail?

So after the rest of the exam he gets the electric monitor and sets it to take my blood pressure every 4 minutes for 12 minutes. Then he turns out the light and leaves me to relax.

Yup, it worked. After 12 relaxing minutes, I'm a perfectly normal 113/75 or something.

I come by it honestly because dad has the exact same problem. We both know how ridiculous we are and can do nothing about it.

The funniest part of this is that my mom has the exact opposite problem and they had trouble finding her blood pressure recently.