blood

Only 7% of the world’s population has type O negative blood. It’s not the rarest; Wikipedia points out that AB- is the rarest at 1%. Still — the thing about O- is that I get treated better than everyone else. At blood drives, anyway.

What some of you plain blood folks may not know is that we get special calls.

“Is this Ralph Hogaboom?”
“Yes.”
“Hi Ralph, I’m Denise and I’m calling from the Puget Sound Blood Center. How are you today?”
“I’m good.”
“I’m so happy to hear that!”
“Thanks!”
“You’re in Port Townsend, right?”
“Yeah.”
“How’s the weather up there today? I heard you guys are in a rain shadow…”
“Oh, it’s balmy here Denise.”
“Lucky!”
“Yeah.”

Eventually we get ’round to scheduling a time for me to come in. See, when your blood is as valuable as mine, they respect your time a little more.

They also do reminder phone calls, ’cause they want my blood.

They’re also unfailingly nice at the blood center. They know I’m different than others because the check-in lady says “And here’s someone else for you … he has a 10 AM appt.”

That’s code for “He has an appointment, that means he has valuable blood. Treat this one well.”

I don’t love getting treated this way. It’s more accurate to say I looooooooooooooove being treated this way. I’m over a half gallon for the last 12 months; when I hit a gallon of blood donated, I get a new pin! I’m pretty excited.

zooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom

I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.

- President Abraham Lincoln