I'm still chuggin' away at the Secret Clearance application, and I hate to think what hoops I'm gonna have to go through to get my license to kill. Since it was getting tedious, I resorted to my usual method of wasting time when I want to feel a sense of accomplishment without expending any energy or thought: giving blood.
Actually, I got bored with regular blood and switched to giving platelets and RBCs, via a process called aphoresis. I don't know how it works, and I'm not sure the nurses do either, but they have a cute little machine that sorts out which cells go where and what gets put back in. All they have to do is run through the 50-part medical questionnaire in under 45 seconds and stab me with whatever sharp objects they have handy.
I get an even bigger kick out of it because my blood type, like just about every other parameter you might use to describe me, is rare in more ways than one. I'm O+, CMV-, which means my blood cells can go to premature babies, cancer patients, and people suffering from immune disorders like HIV. If nothing else, that's my contribution to humanity (well, that and the prestigious publication that you, dear reader, are now enjoying).
Since it's Friday, and since the men at Samford are afraid of cooties, and since the girls know I have nothing better to do, I was summoned to go swing dancing at Roman's. I figured I'd take it easy, seeing as how I'm sort about 40 million platelets, but I had to revise that figure to keep the ladies happy. (Keeping women happy, I've found, if possible at all, involves, among other things, the ability to revise, rework, remove, and refuse all kinds of logic).
Anyway, the one who requested my services was of course not interested in dancing more than a half a song once I got to the place, but that was fine, since the crowd contained better dancers anyway. Granted, pulling me off my couch when I'm studying valuable educational programming and then refusing to dance with me when I ask her to dance, citing a disinclination to dance to the current song, then dancing with some old geezer 8 bars later is enough to make me want to break her ankle all over again. But I was in a good mood, and still feeling the effects of the missing brain cells that I suspect the people at the donation center helped themselves to while I was distracted squeezing the hand exerciser, so I let her off with a few choice comments. Not that they're comments anyone else would've chosen, but I guess I must've chose them on some level, because they came out of my mouth.
The alert reader will have noticed by now that my narrative, to this point, has nothing to do with my title. For the rest of you, notice that my narrative, to this point, has nothing to do with my title. This is the point at which the one matches up with the other, thus resolving the suspense I've been building up until now.
At some point, two couples of young people (gasp!) showed up. They were all interested in dancing and relatively inexperienced, so I took the liberty of teaching them everything they needed to know. The first thing the men learned under my tutelage was that, just as in chess, if you take your finger off your girl, it's my move.
Anyway, both of the ladies proved excellent followers and a joy to lead, and as an added bonus, one of 'em is a radio personality, interning for none other than Rick and Bubba. For those of you outside of the sphere of influence of the Southern Trump, Rick & Bubba are to redneck radio what Ben & Jerry are to quantum electrodynamics. (All four of them eat inordinate orders of ice cream). So that was kinda exciting, and she told me her name--voted on by the listening public--was none other than the legendary Gator tater, a reference to her alma mater and her favorite flick. She took a picture with me on her camera, but tells me that they can't put it on the Rick & Bubba website on account of the absence of the two sexy fat men, the event not being sanctioned by the Birmingham Buddhas. Luckily, since my editorial staff consists largely of my imaginary friends (and I use the term loosely, as many of them aren't speaking with me anymore), nothing prevents me from posting her picture here. If you haven't gotten anything out of the reading material in this article (and I can't blame you, as I certainly haven't put much into it), here's some eye candy.
She'll probably remember me, because she managed to slip and land on her butt at the end of the fourth dance. I caught her head, though, and she was no worse for the wear. Naturally her smart-ass date chose that moment to tell me she had a torn ACL, but I can't take credit for dropping a girl if she was standing on her own feet at the time. Unless I put you in the air, you're generally responsible to handle any unfavorable gravitational situations that arise.
Actually, I got bored with regular blood and switched to giving platelets and RBCs, via a process called aphoresis. I don't know how it works, and I'm not sure the nurses do either, but they have a cute little machine that sorts out which cells go where and what gets put back in. All they have to do is run through the 50-part medical questionnaire in under 45 seconds and stab me with whatever sharp objects they have handy.
I get an even bigger kick out of it because my blood type, like just about every other parameter you might use to describe me, is rare in more ways than one. I'm O+, CMV-, which means my blood cells can go to premature babies, cancer patients, and people suffering from immune disorders like HIV. If nothing else, that's my contribution to humanity (well, that and the prestigious publication that you, dear reader, are now enjoying).
Since it's Friday, and since the men at Samford are afraid of cooties, and since the girls know I have nothing better to do, I was summoned to go swing dancing at Roman's. I figured I'd take it easy, seeing as how I'm sort about 40 million platelets, but I had to revise that figure to keep the ladies happy. (Keeping women happy, I've found, if possible at all, involves, among other things, the ability to revise, rework, remove, and refuse all kinds of logic).
Anyway, the one who requested my services was of course not interested in dancing more than a half a song once I got to the place, but that was fine, since the crowd contained better dancers anyway. Granted, pulling me off my couch when I'm studying valuable educational programming and then refusing to dance with me when I ask her to dance, citing a disinclination to dance to the current song, then dancing with some old geezer 8 bars later is enough to make me want to break her ankle all over again. But I was in a good mood, and still feeling the effects of the missing brain cells that I suspect the people at the donation center helped themselves to while I was distracted squeezing the hand exerciser, so I let her off with a few choice comments. Not that they're comments anyone else would've chosen, but I guess I must've chose them on some level, because they came out of my mouth.
The alert reader will have noticed by now that my narrative, to this point, has nothing to do with my title. For the rest of you, notice that my narrative, to this point, has nothing to do with my title. This is the point at which the one matches up with the other, thus resolving the suspense I've been building up until now.
At some point, two couples of young people (gasp!) showed up. They were all interested in dancing and relatively inexperienced, so I took the liberty of teaching them everything they needed to know. The first thing the men learned under my tutelage was that, just as in chess, if you take your finger off your girl, it's my move.
Anyway, both of the ladies proved excellent followers and a joy to lead, and as an added bonus, one of 'em is a radio personality, interning for none other than Rick and Bubba. For those of you outside of the sphere of influence of the Southern Trump, Rick & Bubba are to redneck radio what Ben & Jerry are to quantum electrodynamics. (All four of them eat inordinate orders of ice cream). So that was kinda exciting, and she told me her name--voted on by the listening public--was none other than the legendary Gator tater, a reference to her alma mater and her favorite flick. She took a picture with me on her camera, but tells me that they can't put it on the Rick & Bubba website on account of the absence of the two sexy fat men, the event not being sanctioned by the Birmingham Buddhas. Luckily, since my editorial staff consists largely of my imaginary friends (and I use the term loosely, as many of them aren't speaking with me anymore), nothing prevents me from posting her picture here. If you haven't gotten anything out of the reading material in this article (and I can't blame you, as I certainly haven't put much into it), here's some eye candy.
She'll probably remember me, because she managed to slip and land on her butt at the end of the fourth dance. I caught her head, though, and she was no worse for the wear. Naturally her smart-ass date chose that moment to tell me she had a torn ACL, but I can't take credit for dropping a girl if she was standing on her own feet at the time. Unless I put you in the air, you're generally responsible to handle any unfavorable gravitational situations that arise.
