Blood Donation, Jason's Party
Yesterday morning I woke up, put on my giraffe tee (and some other clothes as well), ate a protein-filled breakfast of eggs, and headed out with Dad to the blood center. I showed my donor card while Dad read the paper and then moved onto the survey, which just so happened to be aptly entitled "Becky Leads a Boring Life." True story. So then I went into the little itty-bitty room so a nurse could review my paperwork and check that I've never prostituted myself, never had SARS, and never had homosexual sex with a male (well okay, two outta three ain't bad). She pricked my finger, took my temperature and blood pressure, gave me barcode stickers to play with, and sent me to the waiting area.
When a nurse whose appearance and accent indicated he was from the Islands (gotta love my super-specific geography knowledge) came around the corner and called my name, I stood up to replace my Natural History Magazine and went to the blood-stealing area, bringing my card, survey copy, and Poland Spring with me and lay down on the cushy dentist's-chair-thing. My surname is only one letter off from the word "loser," and when he snapped a plastic thing to swab my arm with alcohol and as he messed with some tubing and gauze on a nearby counter, he said lazily in a wonderful swingy accent, "Do they ever call you 'loser' Rebecca?"
"Um . . . I guess sometimes they do. Heh. They used to."
"Are you a loser?"
"I try not to." He laughed, and I added, "Sometimes I am."
"Sometimes you're a loser? Why you gotta say that? Why are you sometimes a loser?"
"Oh, I don't know. I try not to. Heh."
When he put in the large-gauge needle (seriously, those are kind of big), I gave a slight wince. I've only donated once before, at the high school, and when it came time to shove the metal in, the nurse there told me to look away and quickly covered the site of penetration with a square of gauze. Here at the blood center, though, no such niceties were done. I chose to avert my eyes when he popped the needle in, but afterwards, I looked down and saw the shiny metal stick growing out of my arm, and the thin skin that was stretched up around it. Mmmmm.
When the nurse finally did put a censorship-gauze over it and walked away, I burst out into a laugh. He looked around at me, puzzled. "Do you put gauze there so people don't look?" I asked. For some reason he didn't understand why I found that so funny. There are worse things than laughing out loud to yourself to the confusion of others.
He asked me my age and asked about college plans. We talked for a while at when he asked where Northwestern was located (grr...) I told him it was outside of Chicago, which he took as a sign that I wanted to get far away. "Well, I guess sort of," I said, thick maroon liquid achingly easing slowly out of my vein, "but not for any antagonistic reasons. It's just that I've lived in the same town my whole life, you know?"
"Ohhh! Your whole life!" he said in mock-seriousness. "Wait until you're thirty-seven."
We talked a bit more, mostly with him asking questions and making fun of me, and suddenly a sappily romantic and sexual song came on the radio. "You know this song Rebecca?"
"No, I don't think I do."
"You will when you get to college." He turned it up.
When I was finally done (it took me forever to squeeze out a pint), a big tattooed nurse came over to wrap me up. He said, "What's your favorite color? Green? Good!" (Forest) green was the only color gauze they had, which is why that was amusing. My old friend, the nurse from the Islands, was hooking up the abnormally cheery middle-aged man next to me and said, "She should have lime green to match her shirt. I think we have some lime green around here somewhere." Nurse Biker opened some drawers in search of another gauze and pulled out a neon orange (think my sneakers before when I first bought them back in '04) roll, fresh in its package. "How's this?" "That's perfect!" I said. He then said, "We get excited when we get new colors. It breaks up the monotony." Nurse Island, who was still working on the jokester next to me (the Ned Flanders who was saying "That's okay! I got nowhere to go! I'm not going to take the needle with me! Okay!"), said, "I'm going to make you a bow to match your shirt." While I was being wrapped in orange by Nurse Biker, Nurse Island was neglecting his own bleeding man, choosing, instead, to pinch a strip of neon green (my shirt color exactly!) in the middle and stick it onto my orange gauze. A bow.
I spent the rest of the day finishing my homework (rock on!) and at around 8:30 Greg picked me up. We then picked up three other people and headed to Jason's. Where I was very mature, intelligent, and reasonable the entire night.
That was a fun party.
Sincerely,
Becky "loser" L.
When a nurse whose appearance and accent indicated he was from the Islands (gotta love my super-specific geography knowledge) came around the corner and called my name, I stood up to replace my Natural History Magazine and went to the blood-stealing area, bringing my card, survey copy, and Poland Spring with me and lay down on the cushy dentist's-chair-thing. My surname is only one letter off from the word "loser," and when he snapped a plastic thing to swab my arm with alcohol and as he messed with some tubing and gauze on a nearby counter, he said lazily in a wonderful swingy accent, "Do they ever call you 'loser' Rebecca?"
"Um . . . I guess sometimes they do. Heh. They used to."
"Are you a loser?"
"I try not to." He laughed, and I added, "Sometimes I am."
"Sometimes you're a loser? Why you gotta say that? Why are you sometimes a loser?"
"Oh, I don't know. I try not to. Heh."
When he put in the large-gauge needle (seriously, those are kind of big), I gave a slight wince. I've only donated once before, at the high school, and when it came time to shove the metal in, the nurse there told me to look away and quickly covered the site of penetration with a square of gauze. Here at the blood center, though, no such niceties were done. I chose to avert my eyes when he popped the needle in, but afterwards, I looked down and saw the shiny metal stick growing out of my arm, and the thin skin that was stretched up around it. Mmmmm.
When the nurse finally did put a censorship-gauze over it and walked away, I burst out into a laugh. He looked around at me, puzzled. "Do you put gauze there so people don't look?" I asked. For some reason he didn't understand why I found that so funny. There are worse things than laughing out loud to yourself to the confusion of others.
He asked me my age and asked about college plans. We talked for a while at when he asked where Northwestern was located (grr...) I told him it was outside of Chicago, which he took as a sign that I wanted to get far away. "Well, I guess sort of," I said, thick maroon liquid achingly easing slowly out of my vein, "but not for any antagonistic reasons. It's just that I've lived in the same town my whole life, you know?"
"Ohhh! Your whole life!" he said in mock-seriousness. "Wait until you're thirty-seven."
We talked a bit more, mostly with him asking questions and making fun of me, and suddenly a sappily romantic and sexual song came on the radio. "You know this song Rebecca?"
"No, I don't think I do."
"You will when you get to college." He turned it up.
When I was finally done (it took me forever to squeeze out a pint), a big tattooed nurse came over to wrap me up. He said, "What's your favorite color? Green? Good!" (Forest) green was the only color gauze they had, which is why that was amusing. My old friend, the nurse from the Islands, was hooking up the abnormally cheery middle-aged man next to me and said, "She should have lime green to match her shirt. I think we have some lime green around here somewhere." Nurse Biker opened some drawers in search of another gauze and pulled out a neon orange (think my sneakers before when I first bought them back in '04) roll, fresh in its package. "How's this?" "That's perfect!" I said. He then said, "We get excited when we get new colors. It breaks up the monotony." Nurse Island, who was still working on the jokester next to me (the Ned Flanders who was saying "That's okay! I got nowhere to go! I'm not going to take the needle with me! Okay!"), said, "I'm going to make you a bow to match your shirt." While I was being wrapped in orange by Nurse Biker, Nurse Island was neglecting his own bleeding man, choosing, instead, to pinch a strip of neon green (my shirt color exactly!) in the middle and stick it onto my orange gauze. A bow.
I spent the rest of the day finishing my homework (rock on!) and at around 8:30 Greg picked me up. We then picked up three other people and headed to Jason's. Where I was very mature, intelligent, and reasonable the entire night.
That was a fun party.
Sincerely,
Becky "loser" L.