Sun slowly setting
the beeping of barcodes simultaneously
growing louder and louder.
Pink, purple, blue,
light green, dark green,
grey, on ice,
cups
of urine,
biohazard bags, covid tests,
and blood spinning endlessly.
Correcting each floors silly mistakes
with a new label for a wrong tube
or canceling duplicate tests.

Just then the bartender
walks a little blue tube punk
over to my scanner

“one seemed to have slipped through”