Now presenting, The Amazing Fuck Up!

Saturday, Feb. 04, 2006
8:02 a.m.
<< [ Iron ] >>

I want to write about this time when our school held a blood drive. About how I signed up attempting to get out of third period but ended up there right before. I wanted to write about spending the blood drive talking to a boy who's precedure went wrong, resulting in a very swollen arm and a lot of pain. I want to write about how I spent an hour waiting in line to donate my blood, and when I finally got there, they made me wait fifteen more minutes while they ran around trying to figure out whether or not it was okay. When they finally called over the Head Nurse (that is what they called him) he looked at me with this disdainful expression and said, "You really shouldn't be doing that. That, that's a whole bunch of other crazy shit. But it doesn't look infected."
"Alright," I said, "So can I donate?"
"Of course not. Your red blood cell count is too low."

I want to write about how it made me a little sad, and a little angry, and a little of a lot of other things. But I'm not going to, because that same day, while I was talking to my friend with the fucked up arm, a boy I worked on the play with walked by.

Crying.

I guess it was about a week before that the kid at our school got stabbed.

I don't remember why it hit me so hard. Maybe because this boy who was so upset at his friend's death was always laughing and joking. He walked up and asked for a cigarette, and right then I wished I had one more than anything else in the world.