Whoring Yourself Out to ‘The Man’

There are times in every man’s life when he is forced to do things that he would, under normal circumstances, never do.  Things like:

-sleep with a woman larger in every physical dimension than he

-snort powdered wasabi in an upscale sushi restaurant with predictable results

-run naked into a lake in full view of more than 30 people that he had to see the next day

-kiss another man on the mouth (obviously only applies to straight dudes) in exchange for free beer

-have sex with someone for the first time when there are other people in the same room

-stab himself with a kitchen knife to prove a point

-urinate on an electric fence, a tennis court, a police car and an occupied, windowed storefront despite having other legal options available

-slap himself in the face to prove both his sobriety and his masculinity

-vomit on a slot machine, then blame it on a nearby geriatric hooked up to an oxygen tank when confronted by casino security

I just realized that all of these are alcohol-related, which the gist of this post is most certainly not, so I’ll move on.

Sometimes a college student needs some quick cash and, with no available assets that he could swiftly liquidate, he’s forced to resort to unusual methods.  The easiest method with the highest level of potential fun is, of course, prostitution.  However, when you’re a 5’10”, 160lb Irish/English guy (pale, moderately freckled, moderately hairy), that option isn’t actually an option.  So I decided to resort to a lesser-known form of prostitution: selling my plasma for use by multinational drug corporations.

So what’s the process like?

Tuesday:

7:30 AM – I woke up, fully prepared for a long day of classes, which I then attended.

3:30 PM – I stopped by the donation center on my way home, only to find out that, as a new donor,  I needed a photo ID, Social Security Card and a recent bill to prove my current address.

3:40 PM – I made it home, ate a can of green beans (I’m broke, remember?), chugged a half-gallon of Tempe’s finest tap water per the instructions I had been given during my earlier visit and went back to the center.

4:10 PM – I signed in, showed my documents to the staff, sat down in the waiting area and looked around at the place I had come to die…I mean ‘donate.’  I took note of the 40 or so other people who were waiting to donate and realized that the last time I was this far out of my element was when I was working as a bouncer at a bar in the Mexican Ghetto a while back.  There were the drifters, the addicts, the physically disabled, the mentally ill, the generally destitute and me: a college student in flip flops, cargo shorts and a golf shirt.

The sight of blood makes me nauseous, so I began talking to myself (not out loud of course, although that probably would have helped me to blend in better with the rest of the clientele) in an attempt to calm my racing brain and heart.  I then noticed something odd about the staff: not one of them looked to be any older than myself, except for the maintenance guy putting a door back on its hinges.  God knows how the hell that thing fell off, but I convinced myself that it had been torn off by the paramedics in a rush to get a hemorrhaging ASU student to the hospital before he bled out.

I’m in my mid-20s, technically an adult, but I still expected there to be a ‘real’ adult around the place, you know, a 45-year-old woman with rubber gloves, eye glasses and a caustic attitude, but she was nowhere to be seen.  I then spent the next few minutes unable to tear my mind away from the idea that I was going to die in that center that day.  I broke out in a cold sweat, my mouth went dry, I felt nauseous and I began shaking.

4:20 PM – I got up and left, explaining to the kid behind the front counter that I just couldn’t do it.  There was no fucking way I was gonna let the prepubescent result of a condom failure jam a needle into one of my veins, somehow resulting in me slowly dying as a homeless guy sat in a donation chair across from me serenading Rachel, his plasmapheresis machine.

Wednesday:

6:00 AM – Aware that I was running low on cigarettes, I decided to pace myself.  One an hour, was the plan.  I kept with that until about 6:45 AM.  Willpower doesn’t exist with me when it comes to nicotine.  Realizing that I needed some cash, lest I kill someone for their cigarettes, I decided to spend the day amping myself up in preparation for a return to the donation center with several slogans: “Quit being a wuss, your future illegitimate children will never respect you.”  “You’ve been mugged once and had a gun pulled on you twice, this is nothing.”  “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”  “YOU can DO EEEEET!”  “You could just quit smoking.”  That last one did it.

1:00 PM – Out of cigarettes, I finally decided to shave and shower, but I was struggling with what to wear: I wanted to make it clear that my donation was motivated solely by pure altruism, not because I needed the money, but I was unsure whether a sport coat and tie would be too ostentatious.  Finally settling on an Abercrombie polo and Hollister shorts, I left for the center.

2:15 PM – I arrived at the center, signed in on the New Donor Check-In sheet (again), and sat down in the waiting area.  The same people were working there as the day before, the fifth-grader at the front counter even recognized me: “Back again, eh?”  I wanted to scream “FUCK YOU! I don’t see any goddamned giant needles sticking out of your arms!” but I decided on “Yeah, needles freak me out.”  Awesome, now everyone knows I’m a pussy.

2:45 PM – They finally called my name and I went into a small room with glass doors, a desk, a computer and a 12-year-old in a lab coat.  He looked over my documents, filled out a few pages of information, quizzed me on my documents (one of many attempts to weed out the active drug users), checked my local address against a database of known crackhouses (I’m not kidding) all the while trying to make small talk:

“So you’re a finance major, huh?  Good job opportunities there right now.”  I didn’t expect him to be a genius, but for christ’s sake, does he EVER watch the news?

“I’m a finance major too at Mesa Community College.”  And he still doesn’t know that the financial services industry is imploding?  What the hell is with this moron?

“Well, I was, I dropped out.  I’m going back though, eventually.”  Ah, there it is.

I decided to ask a question, his reply would decide whether or not I left again: “Do you ever get to collect the plasma?  You know, stick the needles in and whatnot?”  Fortunately, he did not as he lacked the training, so I stayed.

3:05 PM – Back in the waiting area, my name was called again.  I walked into another small room, practically identical to the one I’d just been in, but instead of a computer, this one had a blood-pressure machine, a thermometer, a scale, and two machines that I would later find out calculate how much plasma and protein your blood contains, based upon a sample taken from what they refer to as ‘a small finger prick.’  The prick itself was small but they put a tube up to the gash then rub, yank and jerk your finger to extract about a gallon of blood from you so that they can test it in their machines.  I asked the technician, Mr. Sadistic-Finger-Puller, if I should remove my flip-flops before I stepped on the scale and he responded with an unintentionally funny “No, never take your shoes off anywhere in this place,” coupled with a look on his face that finished his sentence with “OR YOU’LL DIE!”

That guy was actually enjoyable to be around, although he did recommend I gain some weight: “You’ll get paid more if you can make it over 175 pounds.”  Thanks, I’ll get right on that.  Become a big fat guy for another $10 a week.  Another round of questions regarding my documents followed, but I managed to outsmart them and pass.

3:20 PM – I headed back out into the waiting room where a whole new cast of characters had been cycled through.  I recognized none of the donors, although that may have been because I had already started trying to forget the whole experience as a form of self-preservation.

3:30 PM – I got called into a small room where a lady in perhaps her mid-40s sat in front of a computer with an examining table behind her.  She asked me questions about recent travel, past illnesses and my current health.  I explained my irrational trepidation regarding the donation process and she calmed me down by talking about things unrelated to why the two of us were in that room.  Her exceptionally conversational demeanor gave me the feeling that she didn’t get too many people in there who had heard of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, let alone anyone able to discuss the inevitable alterations to the global political landscape if the disease were to begin afflicting millions of people on more than one continent.

She then had me lie down on the table and pressed on my abdomen, checking the health of my spleen and liver.  Fortunately, my liver passed the pushing test – I had my doubts about that.  She then told me that they don’t take urine samples, so I could use the bathroom if I wanted.  I had been holding it in anticipation of having to piss in a cup and she apparently felt my bulging bladder.

After a ton of questions about my sexual history (‘Any sexual contact with any men since 1970?’  Apparently gay men aren’t allowed to donate plasma) and the histories of my sexual partners, my past drug use and a check of my extremities for track marks, she gave me a pass for the front of the donating line and sent me back to the waiting area.  Despite being at the front of the line, the wait was a little longer than I had expected.

4:10 PM – My name was called and I was escorted to what looked like a permanently-reclined dentist’s chair with a machine next to it.  I tried to take a quick count of the number of people in the room, but I only got to 40 before I sat down and my view was cut off, limited to the dozen or so people directly surrounding me.  I wanted to ask how frequently the chairs were disinfected, but I wanted even less to hear the answer.

4:15 PM – A guy whose age I estimated to be fairly close to mine walked over to me and started talking to me as he readied the machine to kill me, I mean ‘take my plasma.’  I was surprisingly calm at this point, doing everything I could to pretend that what was about to happen was something…anything…other than what was actually about to happen.  He explained how the machine works in a rapid-fire delivery as he applied a liberal amount of iodine to my arm:

“I’ll place a needle in the main vein on the inside of your left elbow.  Blood will flow through the tubing into a centrifuge where the plasma is separated from the rest of the material in your blood.  About a cup of blood will be taken at one time before it’s returned to you.  During the return phase, some of the anti-coagulant fluid in this bag will be returned with your blood to prevent clotting near the needle.  It’s normal for your lips to go numb and a metallic taste to fill your mouth each time this phase occurs (Side note: neither one happened to me).  You’ll be able to see the collected plasma flow into this bottle here.  Once it is filled to this level (indicating a line on the bottle), the machine will cycle for the final time and the fluid in this other bag will also be delivered to you as well to help replace the fluids you lost during the donation.  At no point does your blood or plasma enter the machine, it is all contained within this sterile plastic setup I’m installing now.”

He affixed a blood pressure cuff on my left bicep, gouged me with a giant fucking needle, taped it to my arm, pushed a few buttons on the machine, and walked off.  Within a few minutes, my left arm was cold and numb.  After a few more minutes, it began to hurt, so I asked one of the technicians walking by if my symptoms were normal.  She loosened the blood pressure cuff on my arm, and within seconds my arm returned to normal.

The rest of the donation was uneventful, save for the occasional temporary freak out I had whenever I would think about what it was that I was doing.  After about 55 minutes, the machine began to pump the saline solution into my arm and I could feel the cold fluid spread up my arm and across my chest.  It was a very odd feeling, and I highly recommend you donate just to experience it.

In the end I was paid $40 for my donation, and another $40 for the one I made a few days later, with subsequent donations worth about $25 each.  I’m also left with a relatively noticeable scar at the puncture site which means I’ll be less able to refute possible future accusations about intravenous drug use.  *sigh* So goes the life of a collegian…

A Jaded Disposition

Today I registered for classes that I plan to take during the Spring 2009 semester, and apart from the usual headaches surrounding that process, I found myself experiencing a noticeable lack of optimism. When I first came to ASU more than three years ago I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, admittedly naive and in serious want of intellectual stimulation on a level far beyond that of the mental stagnation to which I had been subjected throughout the entirety of my upbringing in a socially-conservative Midwestern public school system. I dreamt of being surrounded by bright people, independent thinkers capable of discussing abstract topics without unnecessary and often self-imposed hindrances such as religion, personal biases and willful ignorance that I found so pervasive in my hometown. I assumed my fellow collegians would be people who could discuss topics that offend the sensitivities of the general public without resorting to violence, instead being able to set aside all of our differences for the passionate pursuit of knowledge and greater understanding.

Imagine the disappointment I had in myself when the reality of the situation which I had so callously overlooked finally set in: I was attending Arizona State University at Tempe, one of the largest college campuses in the country and a notorious ‘party school.’ Colleges don’t achieve those distinctions in a geographical region with such a comparatively light population if their admission standards are such that only people who fit the above description are offered acceptance.

I then adjusted my expectations accordingly after my freshman year and explained to myself that with such a large number of people in one place – a place devoted to furthering the promises of academia – there were bound to be a few students who shared my outlook. Finding them proved to be difficult, though I predicted that they may be more easily identified as I transitioned from lower-division to upper-division classes.  Unfortunately, that prediction has yet to come into fruition.  Instead of being surrounded by students who have no idea why they are furthering their education – as was often the case in the lower division classes I took – I am now surrounded by students who want nothing more than a bigger paycheck than what they would likely receive without a degree.  Admittedly, I too am pursuing a degree partially because of the economic advantages it will offer me, but it is far from my only reason.

Many of my classmates, if not most of them, lack the desire to be challenged with their school work, instead opting for the easiest route possible to graduation.  One of my biggest problems with this school is how much work the administration seems to put into enabling those attitudes and placating the morons that they allow to attend this institution.  Instead of being challenged, I’m being bored nearly to death with material that is not only uninteresting and uninspiring but far below the threshold of what I would consider to be the norm for a major university.

For instance, I am required to take two science courses, each with a lecture portion and a complementary laboratory portion.  I chose Geology and Biology, the two basics which nearly everyone seems to take, on the advice of my Academic Adviser. While sitting in the Geology lab one morning, I was tasked with coloring the different types of rock found within a topographic map of a portion of the Grand Canyon, which took the better part of an hour to complete.  As I was coloring the paper, an interesting thought crept into my mind.  I paused, looked at the TA and asked “How many hours during their college career do you think undergrads at Harvard spend coloring as a requirement for their classes?”  Without missing a beat, the TA replied “This isn’t Ivy League material, Kyle, this is busy work.  Now get back to your coloring.  Lunch is at 11 and nap time starts at noon.”  Gotta love those Canadians with their quick wit.

I could have taken a very difficult Geology course, one that required extensive knowledge of Geologic processes and it would have been quite challenging.  However, I chose to take an introductory level course because I didn’t know anything about Geology, and the challenge would not have existed because Geology is inherently difficult to understand – which is the challenge I am after – it would have been solely because I had yet to memorize all of the things I would have needed to know to do well in the course.  The concepts are quite simple, though the vernacular is somewhat cumbersome, and the high potential for damage to my GPA due to a course that has virtually nothing in common with my intended course of study made this an easy choice.

It hasn’t been all bad, though.  Aside from what I like to think are my more noble pursuits regarding higher education, I also wanted to drink a lot of booze and have sex with many different women.  In those respects, there is no finer university in the country – or possibly in the entire world – than ASU.  Perhaps my baser instincts played a subconscious role in my selection of a school and, typical of what occurs when that portion of the male mind exerts its influence, the end result has been bittersweet.

A Presidential ‘Shocker’

Oh what a difference context can make. Like the difference between the President of the United States making a ‘crude,’ sexual gesture:

…or the President of the United States posing with the Arizona State University track and field teams, which is what was really going on in the photo.

So why the ’shocker?’ ASU’s mascot is Sparky the Sun Devil, a creature that carries a three-pronged pitchfork which the gesture is intended to simulate. Of course, most people seem to be unaware of that usage, instead being either oblivious to any meaning or understanding it only as ‘The Shocker.’ It is the latter group that I suspect will begin calling for the President to apologize to their god and to their sensitivities for his crass behavior.

My Neighbor

I came home from dinner with friends a few hours ago, and as we were sitting outside on my patio having drinks, I overheard a female complaining to (presumably) another person. Here are some exact quotes from said-female that I could hear from about 50 feet away, all of which are intermixed with bouts of sobbing and full-on crying:

1) I can’t understand why I’m not married. I mean…why? Why am I not married yet? I don’t understand.

2) I talked to my Dad about it, and he doesn’t get it either. He thinks I’m pretty, why don’t other guys?

3) Yeah, maybe I could stand to lose a few pounds.

4) I hate my parents. Except my Dad. [a few seconds of inaudible conversation pass by] And I don’t hate my Mom.

5) Fuck you! Fuck you, [inaudible]! Don’t you fuckin’ tell me what isn’t possible! (sound of breaking glass)

6) Oh my God, [inaudible]! Oh my God! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean that to happen [inaudible]!

———————————————————————————————–

If the woman who spoke the above words happens to read this, I’m here to help you.   Below you’ll find my thoughts on each statement you made, and perhaps you’ll gain some insight regarding the inner-workings of the male mind.

1) I can’t understand why I’m not married. I mean…why? Why am I not married yet? I don’t understand.

Lying to yourself isn’t healthy.  We both know why you’re single, so stop whining about it and set your sights on someone who you can realistically expect to see naked.

2) I talked to my Dad about it, and he doesn’t get it either. He thinks I’m pretty, why don’t other guys?

I do think you’re pretty, but only while in a poorly-lit bar.  At 2:15 AM.  On a Tuesday. Oh, and by the way, your Dad was just being polite.

3) Yeah, maybe I could stand to lose a few pounds.

Honesty is the best policy, and I’m glad to see you embracing it.  Anyway, I’m also a bit overweight, which is why we are both still inside this bar at 2:15 AM on a Tuesday. It’s one of those unwritten rules of the bar that also applies to life in general: fat and ugly people only hook up due to a combination of desperation and a lack of options.  Unless large sums of money are involved, then there are no rules.

4) I hate my parents. Except my Dad. [a few seconds of inaudible conversation pass by] And I don’t hate my Mom.

If you weren’t drunk when you made these statements, then it doesn’t matter what you look like. Look at Jessica Simpson: gorgeous and stupid, also single (last I heard, anyway).

5) Fuck you! Fuck you, [inaudible]! Don’t you fuckin’ tell me what isn’t possible! (sound of breaking glass)
6) Oh my God, [inaudible]! Oh my God! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean that to happen [inaudible]!

Check, please. Gotta get out of here before she decides to throw something heavier than a pint glass.

Free Speech on Campus

Today, I was sitting in a Business Writing class. Next to me sat a girl who I’ve come to know over the past couple of months, and whose company I find tolerable. She spends most of her time in class on MySpace, typing unusually long messages to people who I can only assume belong to some sort of book club. Seriously, these messages easily approach 1,000 words (or so it would seem), and she types at least one per day of class.

I have this incredibly bad habit of saying the word ‘yo’ to people, usually tacking it on the end of a common phrase. I blame a friend of mine back in my hometown for this, as he was constantly saying ‘word’ to everything, and eventually, that morphed into ‘word, yo’, which I then picked up (against my will, no less) and began using. Like most everything else, I found that me, a white boy from farm country, saying the phrase “Word, yo,”, especially to ethnic friends, is hilarious. I can’t think of a time when it made anyone else laugh, but I used to get a kick out of it.

Anyway, I was sitting there, and when she walked in, I said “What’s up, yo?” I then explained to her that I had made a New Year’s resolution to stop using the word ‘yo’. She giggled politely, and the class started. Near the end of the class, I said this phrase in response to something another girl at our table said to me: “Alright, thanks yo. GOD DAMN IT!” I was cursing myself for using the word ‘yo’ by using a phrase I easily throw around with little regard for its meaning to other people.

In other words, by saying “god damn it” I am not asking any god to damn anything, I’m simply expressing frustration. However, plenty of people of a variety of faiths find this particular order of verbal utterances to be blasphemous, and this girl happens to be one of them.

She explained, in so many words, that she “…[is] a Christian,” that those words were offensive to her and then she ordered me not to “…say that around [her].”

I had only one response: “You must be joking.”

She wasn’t. Of course, I didn’t care. I explained that to her, and that I could not guarantee I wouldn’t say that phrase around her again.

Would it be difficult to stop using that phrase? Yes, probably just as difficult as stopping myself from using the word ‘yo’, and from using my old nemesis, the phrase “fair enough.” I still occasionally use that one, and every time, I chastise myself by saying in a slightly louder, exasperated tone, my phrase-of-choice: “GOD DAMN IT!”

As it was very near the end of class, and other people were working in a relatively quiet room, I didn’t have the time nor the desire to enter into an argument about which of us had what rights, and whose rights should be deemed more important.

What I would have said though, is that she has no right to not be offended. Nobody in America has that right.  I do, however, have the right to free speech, which includes words that others may find offensive.

Out of curiosity, I checked our school’s Student Code of Conduct to see if it had anything to say on the topic.  While there is a provision to protect the right of all students to speak freely, there is an interesting clause that prohibits any person or entity from infringing upon that right.  It was comforting to know that whoever wrote the Code was intelligent enough to include that language, but the feeling of comfort I had was trumped by the elation I felt due to winning an argument with a self-righteous religious zealot.