rev:text
| - Ahhh.... the Stab Lab.
This was a sad, sad, sad time in my life. I've got the plasma scars to prove it. Someone once asked me if I had ever been involved with heroin because of the scar tissue bunched up on my veins.
I can't say I ever had a "pleasant" experience donating plasma. I give this place four stars because it saved my ass, not because it was a magnificent way to spend my saturday. When I didn't have money for food, this place gave me money for food. I'd stock up on mac & cheese, buy a pack of smokes and two forties. I was good to go, man.
You go in, they prick your finger and get blood out of it, then you lay down on a bed in the back and they stick a SPIKE (not a needle), a friggin' SPIKE into your arm and you pump and pump until all this blood comes out. They spin the blood in this machine until clear, water-lookin' liquid comes out--that's your plasma--and they put the blood back into your body. All the while, they have a movie playing for you, usually a movie you would never consider renting, something like Monster in Law or Hitch or the Great Mouse Detective or something.
At the very end of the ordeal, they replace your plasma with saline. I can only describe that feeling as getting injected with mentholated blood. Your mouth gets all cold and you feel a little sick. But hey, you just scored out on some hard, non-taxable cash, so the feeling fades once you walk around for a little bit.
The people you meet there, you are not likely to forget. You will always have a story to tell your friends after a day of getting stabbed.
|