An entry not for the hemophobic...

(NOTE THE TITLE [Peter, possibly Jordana]):

So, I tried to give blood yesterday. Note the key word, "tried." I'm a Happy Blood Donor, meaning, I have great veins, I don't mind needles at all, and I haven't been to African countries to sleep with people from jail who have Aids and Hepatitis and have had sex with a man at least once since 1977 while injecting illegal drugs and taking aspirin. (No kidding, that's what some of the questions towards the end of the screening questionaire sound like.) I have successfully donated a number of times.

THIS time, two interesting things happened:
1) when they put the needle in my arm... how do I put this delicately? Blood SPLATTERED. Onto the chair, onto my shirt, etc.

2) When the bag was about half-way full, I CLOTTED!! (*gasp*,*horrors!*, the blood-donating of you comment, realizing this is the worst thing that can happen in a blood donation!) Meaning, they played around with the needle for awhile trying to get it going, but to no avail. "Look," I told them brigtly, "You can use my other arm! Try a leg! The jugular vein in my neck!" But they said, sadly, there's no way to finish filling the bag from another vein (don't quite know how all that works), they can't use half a bag (it has a pre-measured amount of clotting agent in it, designed for a full pint), AND, they wouldn't just let me start over on a new bag! (Cause apparently they don't let people donate a pint and a half.) All very woeful.

The bright side of yesterday? I've never "accepted money for sex or drugs," as the question goes, but at the end of the day I DID take $100 from a student who needed a little over 4 hours of tutoring. We can eat again! Yay! I just wish I were more confident that he would actually pass his class....