Type O Hero

I gave blood today. It makes my heart feel warm and my arm feel sore. We were trying to support the other people that came out for the event that we were showing off vehicles for. I wonder what it would be like to not always need blood supplies. I wonder what they could do to ensure a constant flow of donors ready to give up a piece of their body. T-shirts have gotten old. They have tried to get creative: movie tickets, food, school pride, etc. If they paid cash they'd attract the very people they want to avoid. I'd say people should donate more, but it's kind of limited. Take away everyone under 110 lbs., the people who have a phobia for needles, people who have been to certain foreign countries recently, people that have taken drugs, people that are a little too sexually active, people with too little iron in their system, and whatever else you have to do to qualify. That really doesn't leave a huge percentage. I guess the 80/20 rule applies here too; that 20% of people that are eligible are giving 80 of our blood supply. I'm just glad they got smart and first asked me the general question "have you ever had sex with a man?" to spare me the details that some of the old questions got into. Maybe they could put my donation information on my driver's license or put it on my record so a cop sees it when he, heaven forbid, runs my information.