Bleeding is Easy

Before work today, I headed into the local blood center and had them take a pint of O+ out of my right arm. I try to do this every eight weeks or so, assuming my health cooperates.

It tends to leave me feeling a bit light-headed for a day, and I hate being stuck by needles, so why do it? Simply put, it's any easy way to do something good. I'm not a cop, a fireman, a soldier, or an ambulance driver. While I'd be willing to do so, I'll probably never rescue someone from a burning car, use the Heimlich to save a choking person at a restaurant, or stop an out-of-control bus carrying nuns and orphans from crashing into a gas station.

But I can do this. I can get up a half-hour earlier on a Monday morning, answer a bunch of check-box questions about my travel and sexual history, and sit in a chair while someone sticks a tube in my arm and drains out some a pint of blood. And maybe, for somebody, somewhere, one of those pints of O+ has been the difference between life and death.