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I like the ritual of giving blood. It's a highly structured process designed to simultaneously put you at ease, filter out high risk candidates, make you feel special, collect needed data, grab the precious bodily fluids, and get you to come back again real soon now.

Today's script was pretty much like every other time I've gone: a series of familiar scenes in a standard order, but with small new variations at each step. The greeting. The clipboard and questionnaire. The taking of vital signs and blood chemistry. The interview (including the consultation of maps). The barcode. The donor room. Which arm. The pack (what’s your name?). The cuff and squeezer. The iodine. The needle. Flow. The filling of extra tubes. The removal of the needle, and raising of the arm. The bandage. Ahh, at last the juice and snacks (including bonus spilled juice ;-). And just for today, a new element -- the 3 gallon gift, w00t! But don't get too excited, the special recognition board for multi-gallon donors tops out with one guy who has given 36 gallons...yes folks, that's 288 needle sticks, 288 pounds of blood, and about 20 continuous days of bleeding into little plastic bags. Oh, and perhaps a few lives saved, but you know, I'm just in it for the cookies myself.