"I have to walk my guy down to the buses," I yelled after her, "Drive around and pick me up there." "Fine," she shouted back, muttering about weather conditions and my lack of time management awareness.
She didn't even wait for me to reach the car as I made my way carefully across the icy parking lot; backing out and heading for the exit as I clung to the door handle and swung myself into her departing vehicle. "You know," I said, fumbling for my seatbelt, "I didn't volunteer for this. YOU signed me up." "Stop your grumbling," Erin sang cheerfully, happy now that she was getting her way, "We're doing God's work and saving the world."
A few minutes later (I rolled my eyes as we parked), we arrived at our appointment. "Walk like a penguin! Walk like a penguin!" we chanted, arms linked together as we skated, shakily, down the uneven sidewalk. When she wasn't fighting to stay upright, she was busy criticizing me for my choice of footwear. "Those aren't even winter boots," she observed, gritting her teeth, core engaged in the act of just trying to stand, "There is no tread." "You. Have. Your. School. Shoes. On." I gasped, trying to use her tiny little body as leverage against gravity.
Suddenly, she stopped, spotting her friend's parked car. "Wait here," she told me, now as fleet-of-foot as a gazelle, sprinting back to her vehicle to grab a ribbon. I watched her stretch out to tie it to the antennae on top of his car...vindictively refusing to help her as she used our precious getting-to-our-appointment-on-time minutes for shenanigans. Me teaching after school? Waste of time. Erin annoying a hard-working member of society? Important activity worthy of delay.
Now...the race was on.
My in-take hostess was a bit of a talker so Erin made it to the donor lounge first. I was assured that, even if the needle insertions did not occur simultaneously, they were still time-recorded.
I hopped up on my lounge and was handed a foam rectangle to squeeze. This was an area where I shine! We located my vein and I was off to the races. I ignored the "Squeeze every thirty seconds" suggestion and pumped that parallelogram like a porn star.
"Amy!" Erin interrupted, horrified. "Be a lady!" "This isn't Colonial America," I told her flatly. "Would you want me to say I clutched the rectangle like a woman manning the handle of ye olde water pump?" "No," Erin admitted, primly. She suddenly brightened. "What about those people-powered little railroad cars?" "I think the action is actually more attuned to churning butter," I argued, "but I believe my readers got the point from my first example." "You mean were traumatized," Erin corrected.
Belatedly, I realized, that in all the rushing, Erin had made me forget my phone at work. All I had to look at was a plastic plant and a dead moose. This was a nightmare. Alone with my thoughts, mad at Erin, squeezing a sponge...a girl learns a lot. "It was six minutes," Erin interrupted, "You were alone with your thoughts for SIX minutes." Now untethered, I couldn't focus because I was being made to raise my arm up into the air for an unreasonable amount of time. "It was about twenty seconds," Erin scoffed, reveling in her win of bleeding faster than me. In retrospect, I fear that I may have squeezed to the point of suffocation. Duly noted, I thought, filing that little gem away.
We penguin-walked our way back to Erin's car. I went to grasp my friend's arm, shying away as she yelped. "That's my bad arm." She moved to my opposite side so she could grab my arm. Nope. I swatted her away.
Who knew that donating blood would be the easiest part of my day?
It's being around Erin that's draining.
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