Blood

I admit that what with graduation, vacation, the move and all, it's been about 6 months since I donated blood. I know, I know, I am totally slacking. I didn't realize how this long pause had affected my level of anxiety when anticipating the needle stick until today when I was doing exactly that. The exceedingly jovial black man sporting cornrows and Nikes who did the said sticking did a very good job, I'll admit. I was cringing with my eyes closed and merely asked, in a panic, "Did you get it??!!" Because the worst is when they don't get the vein and have to fish around for it while you start making deals with God along the lines of "please kill me now." Cornrows simply said, "Girl, you know I got it."

15 minutes later, enough time for Cornrows and his fellow stickers to have affectionately dubbed me "slow cook," my pint was full, and I feasted on my favorite blood donation treat, Lorna Doone cookies. And now I am once again filled with the satisfaction of having saved up to three lives, and that satisfaction was dampered only a little as I was driving home thinking how crappy it would be if I got in an accident and lost a lot of blood...seeing as how I'm already missing a substantial portion.

Seriously though, I really am an advocate of blood donation. I was explaining this to some co-workers as we sat around the table at a little Italian place today at lunch...that it saves lives, plus it's healthy for your body to make new blood. "Doesn't that happen for you anyway?" a twenty-something male co-worker asked. "What, because I'm a girl?" Rather than explain the difference between the AMOUNTS of blood in question, I quickly changed the subject, as menstruation doesn't go with Chicken Parmesan.