Donating Blood

Every few weeks the blood bank calls me to donate. "We need your donations!"

Sure, it makes me feel good I'm wanted for something. I must have some kind of hero-complex (is there such a thing?)...I see those posters up that says "For each donation you're saving 3 lives". So by that criteria I may have saved a room full of people by now. Where's my freakin' award?

Nah it's a good cause, but there are 2 things I hate about the blood donation process...

1) It hurts. With some nurses, it's a quick pinprick. A second of pain I can handle. But sometimes you get that one bad nurse who jabs that needle in the wrong place and it feels like they're chopping your arm off.

2) I have to pay for parking. OK, I'm reaching for excuses not to go. There are donation spots where they have free parking. But for years I've been going to this one donation office in downtown and I just feel comfortable there. Sucks that there's no free parking there.

They call me so often now I feel like I must be the only guy in the State that's single handedly donating my blood for all the hospitals in town. Sometimes I wish they'd drain some other poor sap and let me try to erase my last memory of the painful needle before I walk back in. /sigh.