M'aider!

If you think giving blood is scary, try doing it right after finishing a six-hour first aid/CPR class, complete with full-color, magnificently photographed images of how bits of the insides of people's bodies look. Maybe even yours.

I'm sorry, but if God had meant you to see what your eyeball looks like with a screwdriver sticking out of it, He wouldn't have created humans in the first place, because obviously He must hate them.

Giving blood frightens me, even though I've done it on a regular basis for a few years now. I get all jittery walking over to the donation center. I hate the needle going into my arm. I hate the initial finger stick even more, even though I've had it done 80 kajillion times and it never hurts at all. I get all cotton-mouthed right beforehand, and tense up and cringe. I hate it.

I don't mind the actual donation, lying there on the bed with my lifeblood serenely draining away. It's kind of peaceful. Well, except that phlebotomists, like hair stylists, are apparently trained to relax their victims by making small talk at them. That's just so awkward.

Also awkward is the list of questions they read to you in a monotone, so quickly that you don't really have time to understand what they're asking. The correct answer is almost always "no." They occasionally throw in a "yes" question just to mess with you, though. The reason they do this is so that when they ask you, "Have you taken money or drugs for sex at any time since 1977?" you will have to pause briefly to think about it before answering, and then they can snicker at you.

There are about twenty more crack-whore-themed questions after that, one after another, that begin with "In the last 12 months, have you had sexual contact with..." and after four or five of those I kind of want to snap at them. Can we skip those? Please?! Because, if the question contains the phrases "in the last twelve months" and "sexual contact," all you're doing is making me depressed.

Not, mind you, that I particularly wanted to sell my body to a heroin-addicted bisexual Albanian drug smuggler with mad cow disease and hepatitis B. It's just the principle of the thing.

But once again I conquered my fears, and managed to do some miniscule bit of good in the world, and went back to my office proudly wearing the Hot Pink Bandage of Courage. And if you suffer from a heart attack or a stroke or get electrocuted or fall off a ladder, I'll be able to help you out there, too!

But if you've got a screwdriver sticking out of your eye, you can go find yourself another sucker. I don't even want to see that shit.