Although my absolute favorite thing to donate is plasma, due to the uproarius tingles gotten for free when the de-calcified blood makes its way back into my veins, donating blood is alright, too. Especially when I can do it over the lunch hour at work, as that makes me feel wise and efficient in my use of time. And especially when they don’t run out of chocolate chip cookies.

The donation site during these occurrences, The Blood Mobile, is odd.  Partially because it and all the workers inside it come from Louisville, KY each time.  This, on one hand, makes me feel like my blood is really something special, that they’d burn all that gas and drive two hours one way just to tap the keg so to speak.  It is also odd because it is not spic and span the way you’d think a vehicle like that would be – the blinds on the windows next to the lounges need a good wipe, and there are mysterious iodine-like splatters in places. It is also odd because I end up in there next to colleagues, and the act of lying there while having something like a medical procedure being done feels strangely personal and intimate, and therefore something I’d prefer wasn’t witnessed by people I work with.

For some reason, as I’m waiting (and it doesn’t matter if I have an appt or not, there’s always a sizeable amount of waiting involved at every Blood Center I’ve been to, ever… its like they have an official policy to match as closely as possible the experience of a doctor’s waiting room), I always wonder about what will happen to the Blood Mobile after they de-commission it from official use.  The setup is strange, hardly suitable for re-organizing into a family camper, but also possibly appropriate for some sort of mobile pro bono rock star psychoanalyzing tour?  (There are small offices, and also chaise lounges.. so the Gestalt people and the Freudian people would all be happy).  Or I can imagine a low-rent remake of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (retitled The Life LandBound with Steezo Zeezo) where the Blood Mobile bumps around backwater places like Portland OR or NYC and studies the strange wildlife and removes samples for further study.

Today was a good day in the Mobile Blood Center; extremely chilled orange juice, chocolate chip cookies, and excellent country and western music that one of the nurses kept humming along to.