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| | The Needle and the Damage Done |
 | | Needles loom large in our unconscious, whisking us back to those crystallizing moments in the doctor's office when the big, mean man grasped our tiny arm or butt cheek and mercilessly plunged the metal in, year after year -- until we were old enough to refuse it, or until we'd become apathetic to the pain. |
 | | The captured needles are then sent to an incinerator when the little contraption is full. |
 | | We passed it back and forth, gingerly touching the end of the needle, carefully working the plunger, slowly pushing air through the thing, imagining ourselves as addicts, then diabetics, then my dad, who had to self-inject cancer treatments into his thighs every day. |
| www.citypaper.com /columns/story.asp?id=1519 (2057 words) |
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