“Bring Your Own Cape”

by Regis Michelena

Publication date: October 2, 2002

            Despite numerous quirks (I like to think I’m charming), I consider myself a fairly normal person. I eat, sleep, breathe, and like Jethro Tull just like everybody else. I have feelings, and I like my blood on the inside.

            Yet for some strange reason, I felt a strange burning desire to sign up for a blood drive last week.

            The average human body contains around 10 pints of blood. If you take out one pint, nine are left.

            Now, if you scored 90% on a test, you’d have an “A.” That’s darn good. But for some reason, I felt was the subject of a word problem involving a lot of running.

            In other words, it kicked my butt.

            Like any good story, my draining experience began on a Thursday.

            I recall several signs displaying a guy wearing a cape while riding a skateboard. At first, I thought that Superman was trying to be cool. Upon closer inspection, I saw it was encouraging me to be a hero by giving blood.

            I decided that being a hero would be cool. After all, chicks dig heroes.

            And I wanted a cape. It would billow in the abundance of wind so commonly found in Wyoming. That’d be good use of the wind; it’s not like we’re using it for electricity or anything.

            Because I had given blood before, I wasn’t too nervous. I signed in and waited. Then I waited for a bit longer. Yes, the blood drive was running behind, not unlike Ross Perot in a presidential election.

20 minutes later, I went into the interview, which included an anemia test and a series of questions. I was asked if I had gotten a tattoo in the past year, ever exchanged sex for drugs or money, gone out of the country in the past three years, or been diagnosed with or treated for gonorrhea in the past.

            Apparently, I lead a really boring life.

            Then I waited for a seat to open up so that I could proceed to the donation phase. One piece of pizza later (remember: blood drives mean free food!), I was seated and prepped.

            This meant a sadistic nurse rubbed a piece of sandpaper over the inside of my elbow and colored it with an iodine crayon.

            Once I was cleaned, a vein was located and a needle was inserted into it. It didn’t hurt. Much.

            I squeezed a small heart-shaped ball at three-to-five second intervals until a pint of blood had flown free of my circulatory system.

            For some reason, this occurred with the songs “99 Luftbalons” and “Cold Wind to Valhalla,” respectively by Nena and Jethro Tull, jockeying like short men on horses for my attention on the radio station inside my head. Remember, it’s “charming.”

            I felt fine right up until I was done. Then I started to get kind of lightheaded. I accidentally mentioned this to the nurses, who then stopped making fun of how I’d managed to look even whiter than before and whipped out cold packs for my head like scrub-wearing ninjas producing cold throwing stars.

            They had me sit around for five minutes and let me go after asking me if I felt better more times than Henry VIII had wives. I was then given a green bandage and no cape.

            I ate some more free food, had some Hi-C and went about my day. This consisted of watching TV and feeling like I was going to fall asleep at any minute. Nothing else of note was done, thanks to my amazing lack of energy.

All I can say is that injured person had better appreciate that pint of my blood.

            At least I’m a hero. Now I just need to find my own cape.