seeing blue

Once upon a time, on an unnamed base in an unnamed country, which may or may not have contained a great deal of desert terrain, dust storms, and devious goats, there were six officers.

These officers were not what one might call well liked. These were officers who had been known to regularly get their undergarments back from the laundry with a faint pinkish tinge. Not one, but four of these officers found a small goat in their offices at various points during that goat's stay with us. It was installed on their desks with a bowl of tinned fruit and nowhere, so to speak, to...go.

I should say, at this point, that while I might possibly have had some knowledge of the goat's location, what follows was nothing to do with me.

One night, there was a comedy thing that a lot of people went along to. The next day, I was stopped in the hall by Officer A (not even his real initial). He said, and this is a direct quote:

'Doc, you have to help me. I'm pissing blue asparagus.'

I started at him for probably too long while trying to switch those words around until they made sense. In my head, it went something like this: there is no asparagus here, fresh or tinned. Asparagus urine smell. Does his smell for some other reason? Has he somehow found and consumed actual dyed blue asparagus? Some other (blue?) veg he thought was asparagus? Is the asparagus a red (blue?) herring? Does he just mean he's pissing blue? 


He was just pissing blue. And he had thoughtfully brought me a sample. Which was really and truly unnecessary because I knew what it was. He insisted I take it anyway.  I thanked him and departed. (Note please that it was in no way in my job description to receive anyone's blue urine. There were a number of other people he should've given that sample to. I don't know why he chose me; that's just my life.)

Through the course of the day, I was stopped by two more of those officers (the other three had the sense to present their blue urine to the appropriate people). More direct quotes:

'Is it normal to pee blue?' (A: 'No. No, it isn't.')
'I think I might be dying.' (A: 'Why, is your urine blue?' Cue panicked face from Officer C.)

The thing is...while the methylene blue part was relatively easy to figure out (it was pretty well known at medical school and considered incredibly passe as a prank)... I did open that sample. And it genuinely smelled like post-asparagus urine. I have no idea how they accomplished that.

In closing, I just googled asparagus pee, and found this eminently reasonable request:

It's said that in a venerable British men's club there is a sign reading "DURING THE ASPARAGUS SEASON MEMBERS ARE REQUESTED NOT TO RELIEVE THEMSELVES IN THE HATSTAND."