Someone's lucky charm

For some, donating blood and platelets is a rewarding experience. Those people feel good from the fulfillment of knowing they helped someone else. I don’t donate blood for solely that reason.

Instead, I do it for the rush I get when the needle pierces my soft tissue. Once it was tapped, it was submersed in a whole new world: flowing around it was a warm and gooey vat of maroon life. And slowly, it sucked the blood, my life source, out of me. The warmth of the exiting life contrasted the coldness of the metal needle resting in its newly formed duct. Quickly, I felt this warmth rush down a long and narrow tube, which was loosely resting on my forearm, leading to an oscillating machine. It ripped my blood to pieces through a rough mechanical process of grinding and gearing. After it removed my valuable (O-) antibodies, the appliance injected freezing, lifeless liquid back into my body.

All that, plus I’m able to eat delicious baked goods afterward (while also meeting new people and enjoying part of a movie)! And, I suppose, I enjoy the fact that I’m helping to better a problem in common society, becoming someone’s “lucky charm.” (Side note: it would be cool to track my blood to see where it goes.)