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Blood donations tickle a strange combination of laziness, arrogance, sanctimony and altruism at least in me.  I like getting out of work for an hour while theoretically helping someone and I think a part of me thinks that who ever receives my blood donation will gain my superhuman powers of analogy.  Should sanguinous skill transfer ever pan out, I demand a pint of Carl Zimmer.  The donation itself was unremarkable and my donation person joked that donations were really a cover to implant Americans with some sort of tracking device used for sinister purposes.  I guess they make cell phones.

After the donation (I’m tempted to write “withdraw”) I sat at the snack table, received a bottle of water and bag of mini pretzels and waited for the whatever else would be joining that snack line-up.  There was none.  After, literally taking a pound of me, I received no juice, cookies, or much of anything that could prevent hypoglycemia.  At this rate, two or three blood drives from now donors will simply receive a plastic spoon with which to dig into a bowl of table sugar next to a water fountain.

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I enjoy giving blood.  I’m good at it (if that’s even possible.)  I can drop a pint in about 3 minutes, I have wonderful iron levels and I’m O-positive, not quite the holy grail of O-negative but close.  I don’t faint, I don’t complain and I don’t take the afternoon to recover.

My first indication that I wouldn’t be through as fast as I wished was when I was stopped for high blood pressure.  Apparently, 1250/80 is unusual.  I’m pretty sure that would also kill a person and were an artery cut under such pressure I’d be blow back like a rocket.

Supervisor: Sir, you’re blood pressure’s pretty high.
Me: What is it?
Supervisor: 1250/80.
Me: I’m pretty sure that’s a typo.  Sphygmomanometers don’t even go that high.
Supervisor: Well, I guess i could do it over again.*repeats BP reading*, there we go 130 over 80.

Despite being lower, I think it was higher because of my tard-induced rage.

Then came the actual extraction.  I thought it was the best draw I’d gotten as I barely felt a pin prick, until I looked down and saw the need hadn’t entered my arm yet and I was being scraped by the woman’s finger nail ring (yes, fingernail ring).  The puncture hurt more than usual and the stream was slower than normal.  This gave me extra time to see all the tiny women in the complex get kicked out like a fat kid in dodge ball.  If you weigh 110 lbs and are a vegetarian, you probably can’t give blood.  Don’t bother trying, you meet neither the weight requirement and have as much iron in you as a dying jellyfish.  If you want to, bulk up a bit and eat some Victorian fencing, handmade nails or lick anvils the morning of, something to give iron.  Don’t worry, their vegetarian and maybe you won’t waste these people’s time wishing.  It’s almost as tragic as the fat kid in gym class trying to do the rope climb.  It’s nice that he tries, but part of you knows the farcical attempt is pathetic.

Maybe i should build a Fisher Price “My First Donation” kit where anorexic waifs or oddly dieted kids can give fake blood to little fake leukemia patients.  It’ll come with a plastic fork so you can even get the experience of several failed stabs at your arm from an underpracticed operator.