whaddya want, blood?

I was a good girl today, Gladys. I gave blood, even though my last experience was pretty awful. Many years ago, our church had a blood drive and I gave blood for the first time. It was OK. I don't like needles, but I didn't look, so everything was fine. I got some good cookies and juice and a free t-shirt. We never had another drive at church, so I just never got around to giving blood again. Marv donated several times at other drives around town, and Paul has been a regular donar for years. I was just real ho-hum about it.
Then, this last December, there was a message on the answering machine for Paul, reminding him about the upcoming blood drive at the local sport club. The gal in the message said it was very important during the holidays for there to be a good blood supply on hand, and especially important for Paul, because he was a universal donar (type O-). When I heard the message, I thought, "Well, shoot! I'm a universal donar too! Why aren't I giving blood?!?"
I had no good answer for that, so when time came for the drive, Paul and I went together. The first thing we did on registering was pick up our free red holiday t-shirt. The place was pretty busy, but they had 8 drawing tables, so things went fairly fast. When it was my turn, the table I happened to go to only had an arm rest on the right side. Whenever I've had blood taken for a blood test, it's always been on the left--no particular reason. But I sat down and the gal got things ready for my right arm. That's when things went south. For some reason, she was having a very difficult time finding the vein, getting the needle in, getting blood to come out and just generally saying "Sorry! Sorry!" a lot. Finally another gal had to come over and help. It took forever for me to fill up the bag! Then, when the gal tried to fill the little test vials, nothing was working. She took out and then tried to reinsert the needle. No go. Meanwhile, everything was really starting to bruise in that whole area of my arm. Again, someone had to come over to try and help. They ended up taping up my right arm, moving me to another table and getting things started in the left arm so they could get those little test vials--otherwise they would have had to throw out the bag of blood I had so painstakingly just filled. After several more "Sorry! Sorry!" apologies, it was done. I was pretty calm about it all since the gal doing the blood work was having enough anxiety for both of us. After one more apology, the gal thanked me for being so nice and told me to get another t-shirt. At this time, Paul had given his blood, had his juice and cookies and was just kinda hanging out until I was done. Since I had already gotten the red shirt, I was going to get one of the older blue shirts from a previous drive, but they were out of my size, so I just got another red one. THEN I had my fill of cookies and juice! I'd earned it!! And my arm was bruised for 2 weeks!
SO-----present day. They had another drive at the sport club this afternoon and Paul and I went together again. This time the freebie was a coupon for a free individual penne pasta w/meatballs at Round Table. And things couldn't have gone more smoothly for me this time around! We were in and out of there in no time. I made sure that it was my LEFT arm they used, though....(and no HINT of a bruise this time!) So tomorrow, Paul and I will have our lunch at Round Table!