Item 23 - Donate blood

(Source)

In all the years I've been eligible to donate I never have. Not because I haven't wanted to, but more from laziness. Through most of my youth my attitude was "yeah, that's totally something I should do; they have vehicles, right? Maybe they'll just show up somewhere I am tomorrow." And as I've gotten older I always expected the opportunity to kind of present itself in a similar way. Maybe I would get an email or something.

Apparently my particular brand of apathy and selfishness finally did pay off. I looked into donating blood through my local Red Cross last month, but they had no information about upcoming blood drives (it didn't help that when I called I got a pre-recorded message with no information) so I back-burnered it and hoped that my previous 29 year history of not giving blood would end up being the exception. And then I got that magical email that I had been expecting my whole adult life. There was a blood drive at one of the local schools and they needed volunteers.

To make a mundane story short, it was a positive experience. For some reason I'm really excited to get my donor card, not because it's something of a badge of honor or anything like that but mostly-I think-so I'll know what my blood type is and I can finally answer that question for all my Japanese friends that have ever asked me. Seriously, that is almost as stupid a question as "what's your sign?" and actually creepier to ask. Knock that off.

Post donation bandage or Racer X memorial armband?