Vampire

Another Chance to Make an Impression

Yesterday was my triennial visit to the blood donation center. I just learned that word and I’m proud of it. It actually means every four months, not every three years, but “quadrennial” sounds like a made-up word and “triennial” sounds like I read something once.

The place is full of the heavily pierced and tattooed, all of us there to hand over a pint for the greater good. There’s nothing sneaky about it. Somebody out there needs blood, and in exchange, the center offers free air conditioning and snacks, which is honestly a better deal than most gyms.

I watched the self-recorded video of my visit afterward, the way you’d review game film if the game were “old man talks for ninety minutes while a machine drains him.” My conclusion: they don’t invite me back because they enjoy my company. They invite me back because I do the double red donation, and they’ve decided my blood is worth the price of listening to me.

The initial screener was the same woman from last time. I’m fairly sure we talked hockey during that visit. This time she engaged with me, but not overly, the way you’d engage with a dog that keeps bringing you the same tennis ball. I think she clocked pretty quickly that I was just a lonely old guy who’d talk the leg off anyone who made eye contact.

My blood pressure ran a little high. I blamed needle anxiety, which is a generous way of describing a lifelong hobby of mine. I also may have stretched the truth slightly on the questionnaire. If I’d mentioned our recent trip, I’d have had to list every country, in order, with exact dates in each one, and there was no chance of that. Naming them out of order and guessing at the timeline would have exposed the true state of my memory, and honestly I felt I was sparing both of us the paperwork. I hadn’t done anything else on the naughty list, so skipping the travel questions felt like the fastest route to the gurney.

Which brings me to the business end of the donor center, and my technician, who I’d also worked with before. She started off friendly. Then I kept talking, and I watched recognition arrive on her face like a slow-loading webpage. She survived the appointment. I think it cost her something.

I probably didn’t help my case by opening with “I’m your next victim.” Then I called myself a secret shopper, which didn’t confuse her so much as make her wonder if her performance that day was being quietly graded. It wasn’t. I just like watching people recalculate.

They hand you a squeeze ball while you donate, and mine came shaped like a basketball. I told her I’d have preferred a football. Turns out she agreed. “The Norman donor center gets footballs,” she said. “They have a budget for that. We just take what we’re given.” She’d made peace with it, in the way people make peace with things they complain about constantly.

For reasons known only to the blood-donation industrial complex, technicians aren’t allowed to let you watch the monitor to see what’s actually happening in your arm. Instead, there are little spinning knobs that mean things, sort of, if you squint. Double red donation is basically alchemy anyway, since what goes back into you isn’t what came out. My tech tried to walk me through which knob spins during a withdrawal and which one spins during a return. You squeeze the ball on the withdrawal, not the return, a fact I nearly learned the hard way. We got it sorted before I blew a vein, which I’m choosing to call a win.

I think I ended on a decent note. When the machine gave its final beep, I announced, “I survived another one,” and got an actual smile out of her. We never quite bonded, but I’m already workshopping better material for next time. This is apparently what passes for a hobby now.

So why do I keep doing this? There isn’t one clean answer, and not every part of the experience is the center throwing confetti and begging me to come back in sixteen weeks. But you don’t donate blood out of boredom either.

The t-shirts help. I get a new one every time, and while not all of them are “wow,” a couple have earned a permanent spot in my drawer. The latest one connects blood donation to the dog days of summer somehow. I’m apparently in my t-shirt era, though at this point I think every era of my life has just been a t-shirt era. Congratulations to me, I’m now a t-shirt connoisseur.

My cholesterol has also never been an issue, and giving blood is a nice reminder that I did pass along at least one good gene. When my kids bring up whatever genetic flaws they inherited, I remind them, “If your cholesterol’s fine, that’s me. You didn’t lose the whole lottery.”

On my way out, the front desk person, who must have missed my check-in while on break, sent me off with, “Thanks for your help on that double.” I have no idea if she actually knew that or just says it to everyone, but either way, I fell for it completely. I didn’t book my next appointment, but I’ll probably be back before Christmas to keep the friendship going, see what jokes show up on their own, and hope I don’t lose an entire vacation to “amnesia” again.

The Art of the Squeeze: Another Donor Day

My new “Sticks on Route 66” shirt.

My double red eligibility opened up earlier this week — right on schedule, every sixteen weeks, whether the world needs me or not. I didn’t want to look like the guy who watches the schedule too closely, so I waited two days before heading in. Judging by the mood I walked in with, the staff probably wished I’d waited a couple more.

Before I left for OBI in Norman, I had to give our final hockey boy his end-of-season pep talk. I snapped a picture of him before I left so I could pretend I was still there when he actually walked out the door. The picture was taken a half hour too early. I am a scoundrel with no photographic ethics.

The older couple ahead of me at the front desk had arrived early. Fortunately, the staff member recognized my impatience and quickly got me into the screening room. I had a couple of lines I was proud of. When they asked if I’d ever donated under a different name, I said I usually go by Andrew, but sometimes Andy. When they asked if anything had changed since I completed the survey four hours earlier, I said I’d been briefly pregnant but wasn’t anymore. My slap-happiness does not always have good taste.

The screener, it turned out, works at the hockey rink. She has brothers who played out of state and were billeted at houses just like ours. Except the homemade pizza probably wasn’t as good.

Three people got involved once I was set up at the apheresis machine — the vampire machine, as I think of it, since it gives back what it doesn’t need.

The first got me settled in. Heating pad, arm pillow, squeezey toy. She handled the light work so the next person could focus on the vampire-specific functions.

The second was Hannah. I didn’t say Montana, but I thought it. She walked me through a recent FDA rule change: you now squeeze the toy the entire time, not just when blood is leaving your body. Apparently, the change was made to keep things straightforward for everyone. It does more than tickle when the flow reverses, by the way.

The TV had replaced the Power Rangers with American Ninja Warriors. One contestant was clearly training full-time for this at age 52. I thought about thinking something more critical, then remembered I was the guy who drove across town to lie in a chair and squeeze a toy. With the TV failing me, I studied the donor-recipient chart on the wall. My O+ can go to any blood type with a plus sign. I’m basically the Costco of blood.

The third had a paramecium tattoo on her left upper arm and a light blue bandanna. I’m not explaining it further. After the needle came out, she reached for the stretchy wrap and opened a drawer full of colors that would have had me deliberating for several minutes. She chose beige. It was the end of the roll, so I can respect that. But couldn’t I be special just once?

I settled in at the snack table with my Chex Mix and Gatorade, Nutter Butters tucked away to go. With my daughters out of the house now, setting them on the kitchen counter still brings back some fond memories — something to look forward to on their next visit.

So why do I throw two hours away watching things I don’t care about while surrounded by tattoos and piercings? It’s not the T-shirts, though “Get Your Sticks on Route 66” is genuinely good. It might be a little bit of my dad, who donated regularly — except he had hepatitis, which probably disqualifies the hereditary angle. Since he’s not around to ask, it still makes a good story.

When all the other reasons fall away, I’m healthy and able to, and that’s enough. When the cholesterol results show up in the OBI app, I smile and pat myself on the back for something I had no control over

I must like people at least a little. I married one.

Blood Encouragement

In mid-January, I became eligible to give blood again. This meant I received a few unanswered calls on our landline phone. I received additional encouragement to give blood when the evening news had a story about a blood shortage. The news story said donors would receive a $20 gift card. I didn’t walk but ran to my computer where I scheduled my appointment for the next day.

When I give blood, it is almost always “double red”. This allows me to do a good thing, but not get frustrated with the inefficiencies at the blood donation center. I am only eligible every 16 weeks instead of the standard 8 weeks. I still get the mini-physical. I just get half as many as those who go every 2 months.

Now, back to the blood. After signing in and a brief wait, I was screened for the day’s donation. Wisely, I had done my pre-donation questions on-line. There were a couple of new ones that were mostly HIV related. After getting the lowest blood pressure reading in a few months, I was pushed out the screening door toward my home for the next 45 minutes.

After my extra long-eyelashed employee sweet-talked me and set up the equipment, the donation process began. It was while giving the intermittent squeezes to the object in my palm that I noticed the extreme violence on the monitor mounted just to my left. Since it was the climax of the movie, the violence was at its peak. The good guys were releasing their powers on the almost equally gifted bad guys. There was blood, tears, and perseverance through certain death blows. Did I mention blood? Yes, there was plenty of that.

After a point, I couldn’t resist asking my attendant, “Who chose today’s movies?” After she replied, “I did.”, I had nowhere else to go. I watched this movie end as the next one started, “The Covenant”. I let the blood flow on and off screen until my bag was full.

I don’t think the visual blood accelerated or hindered the donation process at all. However, I would vote for no visual entertainment, but most certainly non-violent videos in this setting. I understand it is their work environment. Maybe a music station that covers the spectrum? The attendants need to be entertained. Whatever decision is made, I suggest a “no blood” policy in their future choices.

Interview With A Vampire

Okay, suggestive titles aside, there really is some truth here–just let me explain!  If you can’t stand the wait, she would be an “associate of vampires”, but that is  all you are getting from me.  You have to read for the rest.

As I was completing my walk today, I walked thru a park that has ball fields, a playground, a dog park, and lots of trees along the edges.  As I noted a “new” city vehicle at the park near the trail, I noticed its likely owner emerging from the foliage rolling a grocery cart type thing.  I was prepared to pass her without putting my deductive reasoning to the test.  Fortunately, I was willing to break my train of thought and begin the interview.

“Collecting this weeks mosquitoes?”, I asked after observing her cart with some netting and articles that seemed to be allowing people to check in but NOT check out.

She seemed to enjoy the interested and lit up.  And, then she went into a bit of an explanation.  “I drop the traps on Thursday and pick them up on Friday.  I don’t know what kind of mosquitoes I have in the basket.  I take them to the health department for them to determine that.  I do this from the end of March until about Thanksgiving.”

As you are now clearly aware, I was interviewing a vampire handler and NOT the vampire, but if we pretend she is a mosquito whisperer, I am not completely crazy for going down this pathway.

Knowing mosquitoes were being collected in a little white net “basket” within a 1/2 mile of my home, did cause the next few questions.  (I did ask in a conversational way, but a summary seems to make the whole thing more concise and readable.  She was not a quick talker…)

  • Have they found any Zika? No
  • What about West Nile?  Just last week they found some West Nile in a stagnant creek behind a trailer park.  It was a couple miles south of here.
  • Do you get bit often?

The biting issue is where I was most intrigued by the conversation.  To my question, she answered, “Not to much, but I go through quite a bit of OFF. And, I often use the cheap baby oil/creme from the Dollar Store.”

Knowing there is something that is cheap AND smells better than garlic (trying to keep the vampire theme relevant), did get my attention.  I asked, “Do you always use them both OR do you believe the baby creme can work by itself?”

Although her answer took longer to sort out then I had the patience to recapture here, her boiled down reply was, “I have used them both separately and together.  Sometimes I forget one of the other.  Either one seems to work pretty well by itself.”

So, if you have a fear of mosquitoes and don’t like the smell of OFF or have any tastier humans nearby, consider spending a dollar at the Dollar Store and getting yourself some of this bane to vampire everywhere.  I “think” this is the anti-vampire product, but she didn’t have it to show to me.  It fits the price point she told me and the packaging description.  Good Luck!!

This is what the mosquito gathering apparatus looks like when collecting.

This is what the mosquito gathering apparatus looks like when collecting.