No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Well, it's been a very long time since my last post, and I apologize to those of you who diligently check back time and time again, only to be disappointed. The truth is, I've been kind of dry lately, and I've realized it's because I haven't really had anything to bitch about. Usually I have no problem coming up with a tirade—against people of a particular political persuasion, Internet spammers, idiots in general, etc. Never before have I used my blog to rail against a charitable organization. All that's about to change! My victim--the American Red Cross.

Actually, after hearing my story, I'm sure you'll agree that I was the victim.

[Note that all of this actually took place on Tuesday.]

Today at work we had a blood drive, and I thought I would try to be a nice person and donate. Anyone who has ever done this knows what a hassle it is—there are long, very personal forms to fill out, and then you undergo interrogation by a complete stranger on your most personal health issues, and then, finally, if you are deemed worthy, you are permitted to let them stick a very large needle in your arm, where it stays for about 20 minutes while you squeeze a rubber ball and experience general discomfort. But hey, it's for a good cause, right? And I've always been willing to endure this treatment, particularly since I have very nice, large veins that are easy to stick. (The nurses are always thrilled when I roll up my sleeve--they inevitably go on and on about my lovely veins. I would've made a good junkie.)

So today, I saunter on down to the conference room, prepared to spend a little time and do a good deed. I get there, and a volunteer gives me a packet of information to read. I peruse the material briefly, already quite familiar with the requirements and warnings about who should not donate. I don’t see anything in the material to disqualify me, so I turn the packet back in, and the volunteer tells me to go on into the room.

That's when the fun starts. The first step in donating blood is, as I mentioned before, this long, personal form you have to fill out. While filling out your form, you are supposed to be in a secluded area to ensure confidentiality. Today, the Red Cross’s idea of "secluded" is a large table set up right by the door to the conference room, with a couple of partitions in the middle of the table, presumably to keep the other people sitting at the table from peeking at your form. There was no problem, apparently, with people walking all around the perimeter of the table peeking at your form. But whatever. Bizarrely, however, they had decided that the chair closest to the door itself, which was the only one free when I arrived, was not secluded, and so they wouldn't even give me a form until one of the other chairs opened up. (When two people sitting in the other chairs who had already finished their forms asked the attendants if they could switch with me, thereby allowing me to start on my form, they were ignored.) Finally, I was allowed to move one seat over and fill out my form.

Oh wait, let me back up. Before I could fill out my form, they first had to print out my own personal form for me from a computer they had set up. This computer was also "secluded." (For purposes of this narrative, understand that when I say "secluded," I mean they have a small partition-type thing, about two feet high, set up on a table.) Sitting at this computer was a woman I would come to know all too well over the course of the next . . . well, we'll keep the time frame a secret for the moment. In the interest of livening up this story with a little sarcasm, let's call her The Rocket Scientist, or TRS. I sit down at the computer, and TRS asks me for my ID. I give her my driver's license and my Red Cross donor's card—impressive, huh? I have a freakin' donor's card! I should have been all set, sailed through, etc. etc. No. First, she asks for my Social Security number. I point out that it is right there on my driver's license. Things proceed thusly:

TRS: I'm not allowed to read your Social Security number off the card. You need to say it out loud for me.
Me: [Blank stare. Long pause.] But you guys are so worried about confidentiality. Wouldn’t it be more confidential for you to read it off the card than for me to say it out loud in this room full of people?
TRS: [Face clouded over with confusion and incomprehension.] I don’t know. Let me ask about this.
Me: Really?

At this point, she calls someone over, and they consult. For about five minutes. Time I will never get back seeps away as they actually weigh the pros and cons of her reading off my number versus me saying it out loud. I pass the time by speculating on how this issue has apparently never come up before. Finally, it is decided she can read the number off the card. The “consultant” leaves, and things proceed smoothly as I confirm my address and phone number. Then my form is printed out, and I am escorted back to my “secluded” seat to fill it out.

TIME ELAPSED: 25 minutes

It takes me about five minutes to fill out my form, and then I turn it over and wait. And wait. Suddenly, I realize a radio is playing in the room. It was just some guy talking, and I hadn’t been paying attention, but now that I was just sitting there I started listening . . . and realize it is, of all things, Rush Limbaugh. Rather appalled that they would be playing that asshole windbag while people are in here trying to do a good deed, I flag down one of the attendants. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Excuse me, isn’t that Rush Limbaugh on the radio? Would you mind changing the station?
Attendant: It’s the only station that will come in in this building.
Me: Well, first, I don’t think that’s true. And second, I can’t listen to that man while giving blood. I’ll throw up or pass out.
Attendant: [Exaggerated eye roll.] I’ll turn it off.
Me: Don’t knock yourself out. [I didn’t really say that. I just wish I had.]

So now I’m free to go back to waiting in silence. And waiting. And waiting. Finally, I am called over to another “secluded” area for my consultation.

TIME ELAPSED: 45 minutes

I am now seated across from a new person, a pleasant-looking woman who asks for my ID again and studies my form. As she does so, I can’t help but notice that, although I’m not trying to, I can plainly hear every word of the other “confidential” consultation going on at the other end of the table, behind the “partition.” But whatever. Pleasant-looking woman (PLW) tells me that first we will do my finger prick to test my iron. I ask if it wouldn’t make more sense to go over my form first; that way, if there’s anything on my form to disqualify me, I won’t have to go through the trauma of a finger prick, and the Red Cross won’t have to go through the time and expense of running an iron test. [Again, I’m wondering how this idea has apparently never come up before.] PLW shoots me a look that, if translated, would have said something like, “Instead of donating blood today, why don’t you just die?” Then she gives me a fake smile and says that’s just the way they do it. O.K.

One mildly painful finger prick later, I find out that apparently I haven’t been eating enough spinach, because my iron level is one point too low. It has to be 38 in order to donate blood, and mine is 37. I cannot donate today. PLW and I have a short chat about my form anyway, just for the hell of it. It quickly becomes apparent that my form would have been a problem too, because of the time I lived in Africa and my trip to Costa Rica for my honeymoon. (In fact, I have donated blood several times since returning from Africa, but more on that later.) It shouldn’t matter anyway, right, because of my iron level? I finally convince PLW to let me go, seeing as how there are several more people waiting for their “private consultation.”

TIME ELAPSED: 55 minutes

An hour wasted. Back up to my cube, and back to work. Half an hour later, my phone rings. It is TRS. She is so very sorry, but they have some more questions to ask me about my form. Can I please come back down to the conference room?

Let’s pause for a moment and discuss this whole form thing. The Red Cross form is, in the best of circumstances, one of life’s great mysteries. Every time you go to donate blood, you fill out a form. A few of the questions change occasionally, but for the most part, you fill out the same form every time. This does make sense in some ways—of course, the Red Cross has to be very careful in accepting donors, and a person may have gotten into different medical circumstances since the last time she/he donated. (A person may also have started engaging in some risky behavior, although I really have to say—I don’t know too many crack whores who take time out of their busy trick-turning-shooting-up schedules to donate blood.) Nevertheless, the form system is seriously flawed. The biggest, most obvious problem is that there is apparently no database of donors. Why not? Every time you go to donate, you start from scratch, so if you have a certain medical issue or circumstances concerning where you’ve lived/traveled in the past, you have to start out fresh explaining to a new person what the deal was. Over and over again. The info on the all-important form apparently disappears into a black hole, never to be seen again, every time you finish donating.

I’m sure you can now see where this is going and why I was so confused by TRS’s phone call and strange request to come down and discuss my form. Since I couldn’t donate blood, why didn’t they just throw my form away? WAS this information being stored somewhere? If so, why the hell couldn’t they pull up people’s information on subsequent visits, instead of having them fill out a brand-new form each time?

And by the way, what in the world are the donor cards for?

Kind of in a daze and too confused to just outright refuse to go back down and talk about my form, I tell TRS I’ll see her in a few minutes. I will freely admit right here and now that this was a complete, total, utter mistake. I definitely should have just said no. I think I was propelled, in part, by a morbid curiosity about what TRS could possibly have to ask me that was so urgent. Plus, maybe I would get to chat a little about my time in Botswana, which is always kind of fun and definitely more interesting than editing more vocabulary activities.

I walk into the conference room, again, and it’s a different scene. All the donors are gone, and the attendants are packing up. TRS spots me right away, though, and takes me over to the “secluded” computer. There, we proceed to go over every answer on my form, for no reason that I can discern, no matter how hard and repeatedly I try to find out. I don’t think I can even get close to accurately recreating the inanity of the next 40 minutes, but I’ll try to hit the highlights here.

First, the Africa thing. As I have explained to several Red Cross attendants over the years, I was in the Peace Corps and lived in Botswana for two years. This comes up every time, but it usually isn’t a big deal—it was 10 years ago, and I’ve been tested for HIV more than once since I’ve been back. There are several things about this part that utterly confound TRS, however. The two relevant questions on the form, both of which I had to answer “yes” to, were:

1. Have you ever lived in Africa?
2. Have you ever had sexual contact with anyone who was born in Africa or who lived in Africa?

So, first the living in Africa part. TRS sees that I did indeed live in Africa, so she goes to her computer and starts mousing around and staring at the screen. Small frowns, confused shakes of her head. Minutes tick by. I am in a state of disbelief. I peek over her shoulder at the screen, and I see Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria . . . and I realize she is looking for “Africa” in her list of countries. Must be gentle, I think. I try to casually mention that she might check under “Botswana” instead. That takes a moment to sink in, but eventually she scrolls down to the “Bs.” More time ticks by. “No, no ‘Botswana’ on the list,” she says. I stare hard at her; the time for gentleness is over.

“Do you realize,” I say, “that Botswana has one of the highest infection rates of HIV, not only in Africa, but in the entire world, and did 10 years ago as well? If it’s not listed on your chart, please remind me to never get a blood transfusion from you guys.”

That’s when TRS kind of gives up and scoots over so that I can look at the screen with her. I notice that she is looking at a chart of low infection risk countries instead of high. Why the Red Cross chose to list the risk countries ass-backwards, the world may never know. We eventually manage to establish that I did indeed live in a high-risk country for two years. On to the next question.

“So,” says TRS, “you had sexual contact with someone who was born in Africa.”

“No,” I say, “I had sex with another Peace Corps volunteer, but since he also lived in Africa at the time, I had to answer yes to the question.”

“And where in Africa did he live?”

Oh my God. “Botswana.”

“And how long did he live there?”

Please help me. “Two years.”

That familiar cloud of confusion that I had learned to love so well spread gloriously over TRS’s face. Tick, tick, tick. And then, the unthinkable but perhaps inevitable happened—TRS decided she needed another consultation on this mind-boggling issue. This is the point of the story where I briefly meet MTBC (Missing Tooth Ball Cap), some guy who is apparently in charge of the whole operation. He comes over, and he and TRS put their heads together. In a fog of disbelief, I hear bits of their discussion. I have lost the ability to speak. [Keep in mind that this conversation is going on loudly, in full and easy hearing range of all the attendants who are packing up the gear.]

“Sexual contact with someone born in Africa or living in Africa. . .”

“Where . . . country . . .?”

“Two years, which is less than five years. . . ”

“Sexual contact with someone born in Africa . . .”

“Yes, two years ago . . . “

“See here, though, but it’s a low-risk country. . .”

“No, that’s the wrong chart. Look up here.”

“What country was it? Bolivia?”

“No, this one . . .”

“Sexual contact . . .”

“Lived in country five years. But you were there, what, two years ago?”

“How long was he there for? You were there when? When did the sexual contact take place?”

I might have three words left inside me. I might be able to get them out. MUST TRY.

“Ten years ago,” I manage, in a dead, dead monotone. I am dead inside.

Another discussion, very similar to the one above. They finally figure out that both my Peace Corps amour and I would have had to have lived in Botswana for five years before we would have been considered risk factors in the first place. Had I had any energy left to do so, I would have wondered why this was so. It certainly doesn’t take five years to contract HIV. But whatever.

O.K., I really need to wrap this up. But I also need to mention this key point—throughout this last interrogation, I repeatedly asked TRS WHY we were doing this. WHAT was going to happen to my form, ultimately? WHERE would this information end up? Since past experience had proved that forms must be filled out every time, WHAT WAS THE POINT OF DOING ALL OF THIS NOW????

Her only answer: “We need to cover all the bases.”

Yes, I did point out that, in fact, there weren’t any bases to cover. No matter. She had to make her notes, she had to finish my form. I also pointed out that I had given blood already, several times, since returning from Africa/Botswana/Bolivia. No matter. I asked if there was a database. She didn’t know. I asked what the donor cards were for. She didn’t know.

We went through an abbreviated version of the Africa interrogation for the Costa Rica thing, but it was much less painful, or I was too numb to notice. I was finally allowed to leave, feeling much more drained than if I had actually given blood. As I walked out of the room, two of the attendants were talking as they packed up the stuff. “Rush is right!” said one. They were actually talking about Rush Limbaugh. It capped the afternoon off nicely as a total disaster.