since everyone loves twilight, you should all love my post about blood sucking just as much

I may have posted about this before, because for some reason, when I give blood, I seem to ALWAYS get the person who is not the best at their job. It always turns out to be some sort of cray situation where I either a) nearly pass out or b) actually pass out or c) am unable to tolerate the arterial stick that Skippy the Blood Boy just gave me and subsequently pass out, throw up and have a 3 month bruise.

Thank goodness, no arterial stick today. Which is great because that junk sucks, yo. But I did give blood and it was fun as usual. First, it was on the bloodmobile, which freaks me out a little, first because it's called the bloodmobile and second because it's never still. It seems to be constantly slightly moving due to people walking, door opening and closing, etc. This frightens me because dear Lord, we do not any other movement variables added into this question.

My friendly technician today was Mike. I imagine that Mike's job must be incredibly claustrophobic, because he works on the bloodmobile (which is really the blood motor home) and Mike is roughly the size of an industrial refrigerator.

So Mike starts digging on my arm with the needle and at about stick #4 I'm starting to think that Mike is running out of chances and if he digs in there one more time, I might have to pop him, refrigerator sized or not. Lucky for both me and Mike, he finally has a win on attempt numero cinco and I feel like I can relax.

I sit there, sipping on my water, trying to distract myself with my iPhone, just chillin yo. But then I start to get that dear-sweet-baby-Jesus-I-am-going-to-pass-out feeling. You know that feeling, when the blood motor home starts to feel like it is 462 degrees and that you might barf all over Mike and anyone else in your general vicinity.

About that time, a woman later identified as Lisa, and also as el jefe of the blood motor home, storms onto the bus. Because of the way I was positioned, my butt laid out on the chair/bed/whatever thing is the first thing you see upon entering the blood motor home. Upon viewing me, Lisa starts hollering at Mike.

"MIKE, look at her!" [Goes to look at my bag of blood.] "Why do you have her turned up to 42? SHE CAN'T HANDLE 42."

Lisa, as you may be now understanding, is kind of the blood Nazi. Her hollering startles Mike, who starts getting jumpy and making sudden movements around my arm and jerking on the lines, which in turn makes me real nervous and feel a lot more like I might pass out and/or throw up.

Then Lisa turns her attention to me. She starts turning the blood motor home air vents toward me, gets an ice pack and militantly demands that I put it behind my neck. She gets one of those tiny nursing-home-sized Pepsis out of the cooler, gives me a straw and tells me to swish the Pepsi.

Confused, as no one has ever told me to "swish the Pepsi" before I swallow it, I sort of sip slowly and hold it in my for a second before I gulp it down. This is not what Lisa wanted.

"I said SWISH IT. Like MOUTHWASH. Don't you use mouthwash?"

Ummm.

So I attempt to better follow Lisa's directions. Surprisingly, this seems to work. I'm no longer feeling like I might pass out/throw up. I'm beginning to feel like Lisa has done the voodoo on me. How could swishing Pepsi like MOUTHWASH (as Lisa directed) fix me? Very strange. According to Lisa, it "gets the sugar all over your mouth," which raises your blood pressure. I think Lisa needs to come up with a better explanation for her voodoo witch magic. I am just so not convinced.

The entire moral of this story, I suppose, is that if you start to feel like you are going to die/throw up/pass out/walk toward the light, you just need a tiny can of Pepsi and you need to SWISH IT. Like MOUTHWASH. Trust the voodoo magic, y'all.