"I think you have some of my blood on your glasses"

I think donating blood is a pretty awesome thing to do. When I see a blood drive, I always think "I'm young, I'm strong, I'm not using all 10-12 pints right now" and make an appointment and donate some a-plus A+ (blood puns!) to those in need. You get to save someone's life, and you get a cookie - pretty sweet, huh? Usually yeah...

One of the most recent times I had donated, it started out pretty standard. I saw a flier for a blood drive close to work and made a donation appointment over my lunch hour. I didn't think I would come out of it with a good story, I just planned on getting some juice, maybe stealing an extra cookie and proudly wearing my "I donated blood, be nice to me" sticker for the rest of the afternoon (girls like a guy who saves lives, right?).

I sign in, have the standard Q&A with the nurse and 5 minutes later I'm in the donating chair - 1 step closer to my juicebox and sympathy-inducing sticker. Nothing out of the ordinary yet...then they introduced me to the new girl. Apparently I was lucky enough to be her very first donor of the day on her second or third day as a phlebotomist. As she nervously laughed while telling me her name I had made a mental note that I will be taking 2 extra cookies.

She looks at my arms, she gets a puzzled look on her face and announces that she might have some trouble finding my veins. I do not want to brag about it or anything, but I have awesome veins. Drug addicts would KILL for veins like these - there is no way she should have had any problems finding them. After some "careful" contemplation she grabs the needle and nervously smiles at me. Seeing a mix of fear and apprehension in the eyes of someone who is lunging at your arm with a needle is never good.

She is about to make her first attempt and I begin to picturing the needle going completely through my arm when she suddenly stops and screams for her trainer to come over and see if she is "doing this right".

This isn't a good sign.

The trainer comes over, tells her to calm down and tells her to just shove the needle in my vein. She takes a deep breath and we officially have "Try #1". From my angle, it looks like she is too far over to the left. When more blood starts trickling out of the puncture wound than in the bag, it's official.

Time for try "#1.5"...how is it 1.5? Why not just try #2??? Well, she decides to just move the needle around in my arm to try to find the pesky vein.  After a few seconds of digging, she things she might have found it. Thinks? Call me a perfectionist, but after someone rakes around the inside of my arm with a needle, I kinda want a guarantee. She puts some tape over the needle to keep it in place and goes off to read some kind of instructional "How to collect blood" manual...again, not a good sign.

She comes back over and notices that my blood bag is filling slower than it should be and thinks that because she had to "dig around a bit", I might actually started to clot...due to the apparent internal damage...so in my head we are now up to 2 juice boxes, 4 cookies and 3 stickers. She suggests she try moving the needle up and down to help get the blood flowing.

At this point, my arm is a little numb, what the hell why not. She moves it a little and goes back to her book. Just as she flips a page, I look down and see a stream of blood dripping off of my arm onto the chair. I try to catch the attention of the other nurse, but my attentive trainee notices me and asks if I need help. "I think I'm bleeding out a bit, can I just get a towel or something? I'm OK but I don't want to get blood on your chair" OH NO! she yells and for some reason, things that re-adjusting the needle will help - is she trying to plug the hole? She moves the needle and blood sprays into her protective glasses. Not a ton of blood - just enough to spray her in the face and make her start screaming. At this point, the experienced nurse decides it's time to step in and save my life ( I was actually starting to wonder if the trainee was a hire hit-woman, I began to ask myself who I had pissed off lately).

After the "Blood Gushing Out of  My Arm" situation is resolved, the nurse (the one who is not trying to kill me) levels with me. "OK, here is the deal, she messed your right arm up, it clotted up from all of the digging. We don't have enough blood in the bag for a donation - we either need to collect a full pint from you or throw this bag out, we can only accept full bags - we can try your other arm - and I'll give you an extra sticker...you've been through alot".

There was no way I was going to:
a) Have gone through a bloodbath and not have had it done anyone any good.
b) Pass up an extra "Be nice to be, I donated blood" sticker.

"Ok, let's get the rest from the other arm, but I want you to do it, and I want an extra cookie".

The rest of the donation went pretty standard. I got my extra cookie, someone out there got a pint of my blood when they really needed it, and "Attila the phlebotomist"  kept her distance as she wiped her glasses off and nervously paged through her manual for the rest of my visit.

Even though I ended up a few pints lower than I expected, I still think donating blood is awesome, but do you know what is even more awesome? Not sucking at your job as a phlebotomist so you don't massacre the donors. 

"Row it off soldier" is horrible advice.

How many of you have gym memberships? OK, all of you who have your hands raised - keep them raised if you went at least 3 times a week when you first joined. Allright...now how many of you still go as often after 4 months? Still got them raised? Good! Quit complaining, if you work out as much as you say you do, your arm shouldn't hurt that bad. How about after 6 months? Anyone?

Like many Americans I am a fan of nacho cheese Doritos. And because of which, I have a gym membership. As you fellow orange-fingerprint-leaving star-athletes know, when you first join a gym, there is a bit of a learning curve. I have actually been a member of a few gyms over the past few years. I like my gym now, and although I do not consider myself ready to join the cast of Jersey Shore (Sidenote - what is up with the GTL thing? How the hell does anyone have so much laundry to do that they have made it into a mantra?), but I think I am experienced enough to not feel completely out of place at the gym. As I said, as with anything else new, there was a learning curve to working out. I'm sure noone involved will ever forget my first day working out at a gym.

A couple of years I decided for the first time that I want to be in better shape and was going to join the gym next door to my apartment complex. I was pretty excited. I spent the whole day at work ready and waiting to go home and work out for the first time at a new state-of-the-art gym. 5 O'clock came and I was on my way. Now I know that it is not good to work out on an empty stomach, so I figured I would quickly inhale a big plate of leftover spaghetti before I went for my first day at the gym. As a public service - noone who "inhales a large plate of spaghetti" into their mouth should be out the door on the way to the gym.

So on the first day that this place, they partner you up with a personal trainer to teach you how to use all of the equipment and then they max you out on every exercise they can think of so you can figure out how hard you should be working out.

WAIT - they do what? Crap...

So a while later there I am - covered in sweat, already sore and reeking of a combination of spaghetti & regret, when my trainer introduces me to our friend, the rowing machine. 3 sets into some furious high-impact high-level rowing "fun", I start feeling 'not so great'.

"You're FINE" I tell myself. "Row it off, soldier" I tell myself. "Row it off, soldier" is possibly some of the worst advice I have ever given myself.

Now it was my first day, I wasn't exactly sure what the tough-guy way was to tell your personal trainer that you are about to puke. Not wanting to seem like a wuss, between rows I manage to pant: "I...THINK...I...AM...GOING...TO...RUN TO..THE BATHROOM ...AND..PUKE...REAL...QUICK...OKAY?" My trainer asks me to repeat myself, points to the locker room and shrieks "OH GOD! Okay, RUN! Good Luck!". Good luck? Really? In his defense, I really don't know the proper way to respond to that either.

I make a mad dash to the huge locker room, which had apparently been built with the architectural goal of hiding the toilets and making them impossible to find. After frantically running to-and-fro with my hand over my mouth, I find them.

About 5 minutes later I'm ready to get back to completely acing day 1 at the gym. I figure "I already vomited - how much worse can it get". Then I fell off an an elliptical machine.

It wasn't exactly a 5-star day, but I can confidently say that I have not fallen off of, or threw up on gym equipment in years.

Sure we all see the new people at the gym - the first timer who wears jeans to work out, the lame couple that wears matching his-and-hers track suits (before he is ridiculed by his friends), when you see them, just remember how much of a spaz you probably were on day 1 and be a stand-up guy and remind them that the elliptical machines apparently operate on fucking moon gravity.

Get a room!

Ok, I will start out by saying that I am not a fan of PDA. No, I am not against little electronic organizers,  Public Displays of Affection are always super uncomfortable for basically everyone. A small kiss, a quick hug, an amorous high-five - I couldn't care less about the small stuff. It's the big stuff that weirds me out. What constitutes "big stuff" you may ask?

Well...

A few days ago I was at work. I looked out the window, saw that it was one of the rare nice days we get in our town. Since we basically only get 4 of them a year (I'm not kidding, we were honestly crowned the "City with the Worst Weather in America" by The Weather Channel), I decided I would go for a morning walk.  I grabbed a co-worker and we headed outside for a relaxing morning walk.

That particular morning, I was not the only one who decided to take advantage of a sunny, low-humidity, surprisingly-thunderstormless morning.

We get about a block away from work and walk past the downtown public library and there they were..I had decided to enjoy the weather by taking a walk around the block - BUT a large couple had decided that they would celebrate the nice weather by making love on the grassy knoll right in front of the library. My morning walk was ruined...not just my walk, but BOOKS IN GENERAL might actually now be ruined for me.

A few questions come to mind:
1) In what universe is this OK?
2) Why is it only the couples who are not considered traditionally..."attractive" who have no shame? Not that it would be ok if it were a couple of models who were mauling each other in front of the book depository, but it just always kinda seems...
3) WHY GOD WHY?
4 Did they get bored waiting for the library to open for the day and just needed something to do? Because there is ALWAYS sudoku. Dear god, I wish they would have chosen to do sudoku that morning.

I just shuttered, shook my head and continued on with my "relaxing" morning walk.

So if you are in love. FANTASTIC!
Am I happy for you? Yes!
Do I think that people who attack each other like a couple of jungle animals in heat in shockingly public places should be pelted with water balloons? Absolutely!

When you are out at Target, or the grocery story with that special someone, don't be a jerk and make it uncomfortable to be in the soup isle with the two of you. Knock it off before someone hoses the two of you down. Or just call the cops...and if they don't arrest you, they could maybe just mace me so I don't accidentally catch another horrifying glimpse. Either way.

But seriously, tone it down when other people are present.