At least the snacks were good.

'The American Red Cross urgently needs blood.'

This is what Jennifer from the ARC said on my voicemail. Yes, the Red Cross solicits you and your blood type. Repeatedly. Unabashedly. It's kind of obnoxious.

Being the good samaritan that I am I called them back and made an appointment to go give blood. (If any of you reading this ever receive a blood transfusion of A+ blood, I expect a personal Thank-You note. And flowers. While we're on the subject, I'd like to say that I'm pleasantly surprised that my blood is reasonably intelligent and scored so well on it's testing. A+ for the win bitches.) First you check in and get a number. I felt special because the guy checking me in told me that even though I was #26 in line, I was #1 in his book for donating blood. Then I felt less special as he told persons, #27, #28 and #29 the same thing. I imagine this is in his script. You then read the literature that tells you unless you're an angel or celibate or heterosexual and been married for 207 years you can't give blood. Luckily I've been celibate for a while now, not by choice, but I can't seem to buy a good lay lately. Onward I go.

Then it's the finger stick which hurts un-neccessarily bad. It's absurd. You'd think with the advent of modern nanotechnology and advances in medicine they could come up with a lancet that doesn't make you scream 'Fuck' when it pricks your finger. Note: the Red Cross people do not appreciate the word 'Fuck,' especially when screamed. Band-aid applied, hemoglobin analyzed, pulse taken and thermometer shoved under tongue and you're now ready to validate that you haven't had sex with African monkeys who dance in a Conga-line dressed like Charo for fun. For what it's worth my resting pulse rate is 60. Boo-yah! Thank you spin class.
At this point a new lady comes to review my answers and asks me the last time I ate. I obviously looked hungry. So I had some cheddar cheese crackers and apple juice. I'm feeling pretty good.

Then I go sit in that blood-giving/letting chair which really needs a more comfortable head pillow. The ones on there aren't so hot. Then comes the iodine. Which I know she swabbed at least three times. I'm always skeptical in these peoples ability to extract blood from you by routine venipuncture in a pain free manner. I normally cry and fuss and hem and haw and it all is for naught so I tried to be calm and brave. It helps if you don't watch.

The stick, the sting and bingo the needle is in and we've proceeded onward with the vampiric blood letting. Then she does the stupidest thing ever. She puts this little gauze square over the needle in my arm so all I see is tube of blood. I'm okay with this because blood doesn't make me woozy. It's the needle I have problems with.

My problem with sitting still doing nothing is that eventually I become bored and must fidget. That is when the precariously placed gauze square falls off my arm and I get a good look at the 'needle' in my vein.

Canal is more like it. There was a cocktail straw in my arm. For serious. Take a second to think of a cocktail straw. Notice how open the diameter is. You can suck up chunks of citrus fruits through it. I know this because I use my cocktail straw to smush the limes in my G &; T's. That was what was in my arm. You could have driven the USS Roosevelt through it.

I tried to recover from that. I never did.

Then Nurse 'What-Hurts' comes over to take it out. Does she hold the needle still while she's unceremoniously and carelessly ripping tape off my arm and ripping out about 47 hairs? Nooooo. So when I say 'That hurts!' what does she say? 'What hurts?' 'Oh I don't know. The GIANT FUCKING NEEDLE IN MY ARM MAYBE?'

Once again I will repeat my earlier supposition that the Red Cross frowns upon the F-bomb, which makes them decidedly un-fun in my book. But they did give me all the fig newtons and real soda I wanted so I'm inclined to hate them a little less.

Good snacks can take you pretty far in esteem in my book.