A Day at the Vampire's

I'm hard at work on my NANO book, YEAR OF THE HONEY BADGER, so I won't stay long. I just wanted to catch up on the news.

Last week I went to give blood. I do that because I have rare blood and they keep me on call. So I'm sitting in the seat getting all ready to accommodate the vampire in the white lab coat. I have my book all out and am joyfully reading away when he says, "That rots." Just that. So I look down there and he's thumping the hose. "It's sluggish," he says, still thumping.
Then he asks, "Do you mind if I adjust the needle a little?" which is vampire for, "Okay if I stab you repeatedly with this huge needle and perforate your vein another four times?"
Stupidly I agree. So stab he does--like the dude from psycho at the woman in the shower. Then he says, "This isn't working. Let me go get xxxxxx. She's better at it than me." By this time I'm not listening, thinking that a two-year-old with a butter knife would draw blood better than he is.
So xxxxxx comes over and plunges around another ten times or six and by this time the old arm is feeling distinctly like one of those watering hoses you don't have to stand there and hold because it's full of holes. Water just squirts out in seventy-five different places. "Well this isn't going to work," she says.
"Can't you use the other side?" I ask, not wanting all that time to be in vane (or vein...ar ar).
"Nope. You just threw a huge clot. Look," she says, holding up the bag with a finger-sized blotch in it. "And look. There's more clot coming out of your arm."
By that point I'm thinking, "Wow. It's a really good thing blood doesn't bug me. 'Cause if it did, I'd be out cold by now."
So I'm out of there after giving a measly third of a bag of clot-blighted blood. They try to appease me by letting me know that my donation will not go into the dumper. "It's going to science," she says. Probably Vampirish for, "This blood's going into the back where the newbs will get to ogle and exclaim over it before it goes into the dumper."
"Does this mean I should run, not walk, to the nearest doctor or ER?" I ask more than mildly horrified at the size of that monster.
"Naw. You're just a little dry," says the Vamp guy (who does not sparkle, by the way).
"What the heck does that mean?" I ask, wondering how he pegged my version of wit. Only it wasn't wit he was talking about.
"You're a little dehydrated today."
I think that's kind of crazy, since after I got done caving the day before, I'd gone home and drunk about a gallon of water. So off I trundle after the requisite fifteen minutes of eating and drinking their goodies, feeling just a little impotent about the whole thing. By the next day there's a big old lump and a nice bruise.

I'm not paying much attention to the bruise, though, because I've broken a rib. I'll tell that story another time.
80-oss (my rebel bow at the local lingo).