Conscience needles me to do very scary thing — give blood

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Sep 11, 2005 | by Dave Barry

OK, this is it. The last day of the Red Cross blood drive at work. Either I'm going to do it, or, for the umpteenth consecutive time, I'm going to chicken out. All the smart money is on chicken out.

I am a world-class weenie when it comes to letting people stick needles into me. My subconscious mind firmly believes that if God had wanted us to have direct access to our bloodstream, He would have equipped our skin with small, clearly marked doors. I have felt this way ever since a traumatic experience I had in Mrs. Hart's first-grade class at Wampus Elementary School in the 1950s.

There I was, enjoying life and drawing unrecognizable pictures for my mom to put on the refrigerator, when suddenly -- you never know when tragedy is going to strike -- Mrs. Hart announced in a cheerful voice that somebody named "Dr. Salk" had discovered a "vaccine" for "polio." I had no idea what any of this meant. All I knew was that one minute they were lining us all up in alphabetical order, with You Know Who in front, and marching us to the cafeteria, where we encountered a man -- I assumed that was Dr. Salk -- holding a needle that appeared to be a size of a harpoon.

"You'll hardly feel it!" said Mrs. Hart, this being the last time I ever trusted a grown-up.

And it got worse. It turned out that you had to get vaccinated several times, plus there was talk that you had to get a "booster shot," which, according to reliable reports circulating around Wampus Elementary, turned your entire arm purple and sometimes made it actually fall off.

I now realize that Dr. Salk was a great scientist, but at the time I viewed him as a monstrously evil being, scheming in his laboratory, dreaming up newer, more horrible vaccination procedures ("I've GOT it! We'll stick the needle into their EYEBALLS, HAHAHAHAHA") and then traveling around the nation, like some kind of reverse vampire, injecting things into innocent victims selected by alphabetical order.

And when we talk about fiendish plots to jab large needles into small children, we certainly have to mention the huge and powerful Tetanus Shot Corporation, which employed undercover agents who were constantly sneaking into my doctor's office, getting hold of my medical file, and altering the date of my last tetanus shot. The result was that whenever I cut myself semiseriously, which was often, Dr. Cohn would look at my file and say to my mother: "Well, he's due for a tetanus shot."

"But I had one LAST WEEK!" I'd shriek.

They never believed me. They were grown-ups, so they believed the stupid file, and sales continued to boom at the Tetanus Shot Corporation.

Of course, I am no longer a little boy. I'm a grown-up now, and I'm aware of the medical benefits of inoculations, blood tests, etc. I'm also aware that the actual physical discomfort caused by these procedures is minor. So I no longer shriek and cry and run away and have to be captured and held down by two or more burly nurses. What I do now is faint. Yes. Even if it's just one of those procedures where they prick your finger just a teensy bit and take barely enough blood for a mosquito hors d'oeuvre.

"I'm going to faint," I always tell them.

"Ha ha!" they always say. "You humor columnists are certainly . . . "

"Thud," I always say.

One time -- this is true -- I had to sit down in a shopping mall and put my head between my knees because I had walked too close to the ear-piercing booth.

So I have never given blood. But I feel guilty about this because more than once, people I love have needed blood badly, and somebody, not me, was there to give it. And so now I am forcing myself to walk down the hall to the blood drive room at the Miami Herald. And now one of the efficient Red Cross ladies is taking down my medical history.

"Name?" she asks.

"I'm going to faint," I say.

"Ha ha!" she says.

And now I'm sitting down on some kind of medical beach chair, and a Red Cross lady is coming over with . . . with this bag. Which I realize she intends to fill with my blood. I am wondering if, since this is my first time, I should ask for a small bag. Also, I am wondering: What if she forgets I'm here? What if she goes out for coffee, and meanwhile my bag is overflowing and dripping down into the Classified Advertising Department?

What if . . .

Too late. She has my arm, and she's, oh no, she is, oh nooooo . . .

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Hey! Look up there, in the sky! It's Red Cross ladies! Several of them! They're reaching down! Their arms are thousands of feet long! They're putting cold things on my head!

"It's over," one of them is saying. "You did fine."

I'd ask her to marry me, except that (a) I'm already married and (b) I'd be too weak to lift her veil. But other than that, I feel great. Elated, even.

I have a Band-Aid on my arm, a beige Badge of Courage. And somewhere out there is a bag of my blood, ready to help a sick or injured person become his or her same old self again, except that he or she might develop a sudden, unexplained fondness for beer.

Dave Barry is a columnist for the Miami Herald. He is taking a leave of absence from writing his weekly humor column. Write to him c/o The Miami Herald, One Herald Plaza, Miami, FL 33132.