A question

I have a question for all of you. Not all of you really. Perhaps not even most of you. I don’t actually know who it’s for, because this would be part of the question and I haven’t asked it yet. It’s all quite confusing. I would ask this question of people I met in person if I didn’t think they would call the cops on me. However, since you are all on the other end of the internet and don’t know exactly where I am, calling the cops would be a futile endeavor. Of course, some of you may have connections to the dark web, and know hackers who could find me, but I’m betting you won’t do that because those activities cost lots of money and just ignoring me would be a lot cheaper.

Anyway, here’s the question; What is the dumbest thing you have done for money? Actually, this whole thing might have been futile because there’s no way you can tell me the answer. Then again, I don’t really want to know. The whole thing just seemed like a good way for me to tell you my answer to the question. I guess that wasn’t a very good way to start after all, but it’s done now and I’ll just make the best of it. The dumbest thing I ever did for money was have needles stuck in me. I didn’t think you could this for money, but it’s quite lucrative.

An answer

Many of you may have noticed that I am usually rather a cynical person. This is true, why even my blood type is B negative. Ba-dum Daaaa! Well maybe it wasn’t that funny, but the blood type is true, and it got me in trouble. Sort of? You see when I had Covid-19 two years ago I went to the hospital emergency room. The doctor and a bunch of nurses stood around frowning. Eventually they suggested to have a phlebotomist take a whole bunch of vials of blood. This concerned me, because I’ve read Anne Rice.

In case you’re not up on her work, she wrote about vampires. In her books the way one vampire makes a new vampire is that they drain most of the blood from a person until that bite victim is almost dead. The victim will rise up as a vampire to get more blood and so on. They certainly never discussed that breeding process in any biology class I ever took, but I digress.

A problem

That phlebotomist took so many tubes of my blood I started wondering how low I was getting. Was I going to wake up the next morning wearing scrubs and a lab coat ready to show up at a hospital and start taking other people’s blood? Is this how a phlebotomist is bred? I must say Anne Rice is pretty convincing in how she tells her stories. Also, I was pale, weak and delirious at the time. An enterprising phlebotomist might just have seen an advantage to get some time off by arranging her replacement. You don’t know. I will admit that since that time I seem to think about hospital snack bars a lot more often.

Anyway, up to this point I am not drawn to drawing blood for a living. So, we can leave it at that. What I do want to discuss is what happened a little while ago. They told me that some of my blood was going for research and I agreed. About three months ago I got a call from a research clinic asking if they could have some more blood. It was an odd conversation to be sure.

It seems that I have the second most rare blood type in the world and since I also had Covid they wanted to do a study comparing the effects of Covid on rarer blood types. At first, I thought this was fascinating and agreed. The best part was that I would be compensated for my time and trouble. This was great until I realized something. Try and keep up with this. I weigh a hundred-ninety pounds and work forty hours a week. They took four ounces of blood. If I divide my weight by four ounces you come up with 760. Then if you multiply what they pay me for that vial of blood by seven-sixty it is fifty-seven-thousand-dollars. Now they want my blood once a week for three months, so that money is a weekly salary. This means my blood makes one-thousand-four-hundred-twenty-five dollars-per-hour!! My whole body doesn’t make that much.

A lot of money

Four ounces of my blood is worth a king’s ransom and it has me really scared. If that blood finds out it’s sure to abandon me for someone with a whole lot more status, maybe even a movie star. Imagine my blood going to Hollywood parties with the beautiful Anne Hathaway, or being seen on a Monte Carlo beach with supermodel Heidi Klum. How about this for a TMZ tabloid headline; “Hey there fans, it looks like Taylor Swift has found a new beau. For the last two weeks she has been scene at concerts and restaurants with none other than Mr. Ohh!’s blood. The vial of blood couldn’t be reached for comment but Taylor assures us that they’re just friends. Let’s hope so, because that sample has been leaving droplets on the hearts of beauties in hot spots all over the globe. Let’s face it Taylor fans, our girl’s heart has pumped through enough trouble without this play-vial clotting it up again. Then again, we could get another great song out of it.”

Of course, they wouldn’t let me get close to those places the blood would be going. I’m still just another worker bee in the machine. Apparently, my blood is big money. This begs the question; If my blood is so valuable, why am I not? Isn’t the whole package better than the sum of its parts? I must have one crappy liver and intestine if my blood can be worth so much and the rest of me brings the price down to so little. I brought this up to my daughter and in typical teenage fashion she told me my face was the worst part of me. If this is true, I could put a bag over my head and wear a sign that reads, “Pay me lots!!! Look, here’s all the blood and none of the nasty bits.”

A solution but there may be more

I was about to do that when my wife stepped in and told me my face was the best around. If both of them are correct then I’m really ugly, but the rest of the block must be terrible. I looked through several magazines to find out the truth. I noticed that there are a few movie stars which look about the same as I do. Also, some of the guys on the block compare favorably. Therefore, I conclude that my daughter is wrong, I am not ugly, my wife is right, I am the best looking one around and there are several other men who don’t need to wear bags on their heads. I suggest you do your own comparison to find out where you stand.