1 for 6

As usual, I got turned down to donate blood today. My "iron" was too "low" or something. I'm sorry my 11.8 hemoglobin level doesn't meet your "standards," American Red Cross.

As most of you know, this is the latest in my string of failures to share the gift of life.* Had I not successfully emptied myself of a bag of blood that one time a couple years ago, I would be just about ready to give up by now.

The moral of the story: eat more steak.

(I love it when stories have delicious morals.)

*Once because I wasn't sure what I weighed, once because my heart rate was two beats per minute too fast, once because I wasn't absolutely sure that I weighed enough--without shoes, and now twice because of the dumb old iron thing. And this doesn't even count all the honorary failures when I didn't even bother to try because of the weight deal. Discrimination, I tell ya.