The Red Cross

I met a new friend yesterday while I was giving blood. I'm using the term "friend" very loosely here, as I already forgot his name and will probably never see him again. But we had a great few moments together.

He was the nurse that did all my registering--taking my temperature, blood pressure, pulse, weight, asking me my full name and birthday every five minutes to see if I'm cheating, and hemoglobin (for real, that finger poke literally hurts more than the giant needle sucking blood out of your arm. How is that possible!?).

There's always the small talk while they're entering in all this stuff and computing it, and he was really nice and funny. (Jesse? I think maybe his name was Jesse.) I asked about his watch, because it had a neon green face and black hands.

Me: "Do you really use that to tell time?"

Mike (maybe it was Mike): "Yes..."

Me: "How does that work? It doesn't have any numbers on it?"

Him: "Yeah, it took me like three days to learn how. It's still kind of a crap shoot whenever I look at it. See, I think it says..." glances at watch "3:40?" glances at clock on laptop screen "3:40! Boom."

Me: "Impressive!"

Him: "Except sometimes I get it on upside down and don't notice. Then it's basically impossible."

While we waited for the result of my hemoglobin test (and I tried to hide my obvious pain from the finger poke), he asked what I had been up to that day. I said just working, and he naturally asked where I work.

This next part, I am not proud of. In fact, it's maybe the dumbest thing I've ever said in my life to another human (that's probably not true at all, but it was definitely embarrassing).

Phil (Phil? maybe?): "Oh, where do you work?"

Me: "At a local nonprofit."

Him: smiles charmingly, "Me too."

Me, in the blondest moment of my existence: "Oh yeah? Which one?"

Rhett: pause, smiles, "...the Red Cross."

Giant facepalm.