While doing a bit of Christmas shopping with the wife yesterday I had sought temporary refuge between two toy displays while she cruised up and down an aisle of girly things, looking for something for K's 1-3.
While waiting for her I had two disconnected thoughts. "How come they never had any of these cool Nerf-gun rifles when I was a kid?" and then, "It's almost time to give blood."
Which brings me to today's subject; the duality of man. There is a streak of orneriness hiding just under the surface of all of us.
Back in the early '90's the company I worked for had several blood drives through the year. Since one of our girls had to have some blood transfusions when she was born I try to, "pay it forward." I donate as often as I can, which I hope suggests that there is some good in me. I do try to be nice to people, even if I don't know them.
As fate would have it we had a new administrative assistant who had just started with us, and since her cube was cattywampus to mine, so we chatted periodically throughout the day. This young lady was very nice, and a good administrative assistant, but she was the most gullible and naive person that I'd ever met...which is what led the orneriness in me to bubble up.
The conversation that day was along these lines:
Me: You giving blood today?
Her: Yes, it's my first time...are you?
Me: Oh yeah, I always try to. My little girl had to have some transfusions when she was born, so I try to return the favor.
Back to work for a few minutes, and then, out of the blue I started down that slippery slope.
Me: You didn't drink any milk today, did you?
Her: Well, I had some with my cereal this morning. Why?
Me: You can't drink milk before you give blood! It dilutes your blood and they'll have to take twice as much! Didn't anyone tell you that?
Her (with worried look on her face): No!
Back to work for a few minutes...
Her: Does it hurt to give blood?
Me: Well, it doesn't hurt a whole lot, but it is scary when they hold your arm over the bucket and you see the knife.
I know, I know; I'm going to have to answer for that some day.
Anyway, she bravely kept her appointment. I could tell that she was really scared, but I could not make myself own to up what I'd done.
But, oh man, when she came back from donating she was 40 kinds of pissed off at me. I had to volunteer to do her paper shredding for a month to get forgiven. (We had one of those old huge paper shredders that took 20 minutes to shred 50 pages. Shredding was everyone's most hated chore).
Anyway, a couple of hours later it was my turn. I strolled in, filled out the paperwork, answered the questions, and sat down with a paperback book to do the deed.
I heard one of the attendants talk about what this poor girl had gone through, and I started laughing. I ended up confessing my sins.
I discovered that the blood people did not appreciate my humor. The lady came at me overhand with the big square needle. Boy they squawked at me for the whole time I was there. "Do you know how hard it is for us to get donors?! How could you do that!? She was almost crying!"
Like I said, I know that I'm going to have to answer for this.
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