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Tag Archives: totally true stories

What do vampires want with plasma?

I recently donated blood to the Red Cross, which is run by vampires, in case you were not already aware of that fact.  The humanitarian things that the Red Cross does is just a front to keep people from finding out that its really run by vampires.

Anyway, I recently supported vampire hibernation.  I have never done so before.  I don’t really know why.  Maybe because I always thought I was anemic, or close to it, and needed every red blood cell to keep me functional.  Or something.  I do things for very obscure reasons sometimes.

One of these obscure reasons for supporting vampire hibernation was that I have been quite curious about my blood type.  I never knew what my blood type was and apparently neither did my parents.  I guess I would have found out sooner if I needed a blood transfusion or something, but I never have needed one.  I have led a terribly blood transfunsionless life.  I suppose the vampires are happier because of it.  I’m not constantly trying to dip into their stores of blood.

ANYHOO!  My donor card arrived recently and I have found out that I am an AB+ (two links).  This probably means the Red Cross will never want my blood again.  “But why?” you ask.  Well, apparently you weren’t paying attention in high school biology, otherwise you’d know that people who have blood type AB+ do not have the anti-A or anti-B antibodies in their plasma and they have the Rhesus factor on the surface of their red blood cells.  This in turn means that they are the “universal recipient” as they can receive blood transfusions from all blood types.  That also means that only others who are AB+ can accept type AB+ blood…so, demand is rather low.  The Red Cross probably does not want any more of my blood.

Well, the vampires might want my blood, but since they’re putting up a humanitarian front, they probably won’t be accepting any more of my blood.  Otherwise how can they explain that blood disappearing when relatively few humans can accept that type of blood?  Nope.

BUT, the Red Cross might want my plasma.  Remember how I said that there are no anti-A or anti-B antibodies in my plasma?  That means all other blood types can accept plasma from an AB person (the Rh factor doesn’t really mean much in this case because there are no red blood cells).  That means that perhaps the Red Cross will ask for my plasma instead of my blood.  Which brings me to the question, what do vampires want with plasma?  I always thought vampires wanted whole blood.  Maybe dieting vampires drink only plasma.  Makes sense, right?

Because we are like small children

I have recently been working on site for Client A, here forth known as Clia.  Working for Clia has been an interesting experience.  Mostly because thus far, we have been working in their warehouse that houses their raw, process, and finished goods.  That last one is important.  Because this warehouse houses the finished product, which are pharmaceuticals, which are expensive, which are still under patent, we have to be escorted by either Clia employees or security guards at all times while we are working in the warehouse.  Being escorted everywhere is pretty amusing.

Ok, so the escorting part isn’t really all that amusing.  We’ve had some really entertaining guards.  We’ve also had a really boring one.  I’m not sure why he was a guard at all.  He seemed really timid.  Nice guy and all, but not really what you expect from a security guard.

ANYWAY.

Like I was saying, it’s not really the being escorted part that’s been amusing, but more the thought that this is the kind of behavior that you might see on a playground with a bunch of preschoolers.  You have your one harried teacher looking out for all the kids.  One starts to drift away and do his own thing.  The teacher has to run after that one and bring him back.  While she’s doing that, another kid starts drifting away, totally entranced by say…a butterfly.  The teacher brings kid #1 back and notices kid #2 wandering off, chasing butterflies.  She dutifully runs after kid #2 and brings her back.

Meanwhile, kids #3-4 decide they’re hungry and go in search of food.  Or the sandbox.  You know.  Preschoolers are always eating sand.  The teacher manages to bring kid #2 back to the pack, but then has to chase after kids #3-4.  She herds them back, but only to find kids #1, 5-6 are wandering off again.  You get the idea.  This is what I see in my head every time I have one of the security guards nearby.  I kind of want to wander away to be chased down and watch another one of my colleagues (or the subcontractors) wander off and be chased down.  The whole idea is just SO. FUNNY. to me.   And I know I’m not the only one.  My PM told me he thought the same thing.

But anyhoo, I wouldn’t do something like that to our poor, harried security guards.  For the most part, they’ve been really nice and they get yelled at by the head of security (who is a very intense, no-nonsense lady) if something untoward, like their assigned preschoolers contingent staff wander off without them.  And there aren’t as many of us working in tandem on related projects anymore.  At one point, we had at least four groups of four working in the different areas of the warehouse at one time.  A few of the days, they only assigned two security guards to escort all of us.  They had to position themselves so they could each watch two groups at the same time.  It’s hard to do when you have all these shelves of stuff in the way.  Those security guards looked really harried.  That would have been the most fun time to run away from the guards.  But anyhow, there are cameras everywhere so it’s not like we could hide anywhere anyway.