I’m O negative. I give blood because I’m an easy stick and I bleed my pint in 5 minutes, tops. Nothing to it.
This happens in a big bus. After the bleeding, they make you sit in a small space with other recently-bled humans for 14 minutes, drinking juice, eating ice cream and cookies, to make sure you don’t faint. I read my book. Not a bad gig, right? Unless you get stuck next to Mr. Big Shot trying to bed the nurse.
“I lost a million dollar deal giving blood today.”
“Wow. What do you do?”
“I’m in real estate. You know, the ‘real’ kind of real estate.”
“A million dollars. What happened?”
“I took 45 minutes to be a hero. And look what it got me.”
“So time is money, huh?”
“My time is money, yes.” (he says ‘time’ like we don’t know what that is)
“But you saved 3 lives.”
“What?”
“That’s what they say, one donation saves 3 lives. Or something like that.”
“Hey, here’s my card…”
Only 13 minutes left!
What was the last conversation you overheard, on purpose or because you were stuck?
Teri Carter's Library 
This morning. My 9 yr old is telling her siblings about ‘Megamind.’
Her: It begins with the prologue. Chaos is happening.
Her sister: What’s ‘chaos?’
Her: What our house is like.
We went to my son’s school play last night. He’s a senior this year and hopes to get into a college with a great theater program, and judging by the 18 callbacks at college auditions, he’ll have plenty of choices. And I’ve seen him perform for years now, but last night he blew me away. They performed Running Upstream, a one-act about a boy with cerebral palsy and his struggle to be seen through his disability. My son had the lead and his performance was chilling. Brilliant. And I know this because all around me were people saying things like, “Oh my god. That kid is brilliant.” It was one of my proudest moments as a parent, and more so because he’s the sweetest boy. He befriended a girl with cerebral palsy and brought her in as his acting coach and made sure her name was presented that way on the playbill. Now she’s in the theater club as well, with lots of new friends.
The best part was that the boys in the back row – big, scary, football player-types who normally give my gay son a hard time – were on their feet with the rest of us last night. I’ll never forget it.
Now THAT is a great story, Averil. Happy weekend …
Also, I love your picture. What a great profile you have!
Took my daughter to first dance class of the new term today. Her teacher, Elizabeth, has just finished chemotherapy for breast cancer. As we entered the studio, Elizabeth was greeting one of the teenage girls who help out with the younger girls.
She patted her hair and said, “I decided to go with the wig. The hat with the fake fringe looked . . .
The teenage girl “Fake?”
Then they laughed and hugged.
(And yes, love the photo!)
my most recent, “are you freaking kidding me” conversation was heard because i was stuck…and am now still stuck with it in my head because i can’t even write about it. so it stays stuck as do i. ugh.
glasseye, your comment left me breathless.