Today at the grocery store I picked up one of those little free bulletins next to the sliding doors. It was labeled "The Employment Guide" (Read: The Unemployment Guide). Great, I thought. Here's one place I've haven't thought of searching for a job, the good old newspaper. And the muckraker in me always loves the smell of a hot sheet of black and white.
So I opened it up with all the innocence of a child about to lick cold metal. The "employment guide" had one actual job listing: telemarketer. The rest of the space was covered with ads for trade school, bogus real estate schemes (because that's a hot market these days), and plasma donation. Actually, plasma donation is an oxymoron. Only the desperate give plasma. No one willingly "donates" it and then just walks away. They expect benjamins! I've personally considered donating as recently as this morning.
Oh, I forgot. There was also a job listing for the border patrol. Right. There's a dream career. Personally, I think anyone would be crazy to sneak into this country. "Turn back!" I'd yell. "No jobs that allow you to maintain dignity here! No American Dream alive past this border!"
You know, my dad always hated it when I sold plasma in my less employed years. He had gone in for the same thing back in his twenties and there was this guy who lived down by the river and sold plasma to get booze money. Apparently this guy had a slight fever and couldn't donate that day. He snapped, grabbed a scalpel, and apparently sliced some nurses and doctors. I don't know how bad anybody was hurt, but my dad never got over it. He never wanted me to sell plasma. I did, of course.
ReplyDeleteI was a plasma donor. Yeah, it paid more than nude modeling--but I probably could have made more at the modeling thing if I'd done somewhere other than university art classes.
ReplyDeleteHere's what they probably don't tell you in the ad about plasma. They take out 2 pints of whole blood first. You aren't going to be able to get up off that cot if they have trouble getting the "leftovers" back into your veins. You'll be there for hours sipping 7Up while people in white coats hover around you.
Ugh. Yeah, donating plasma would really never be an option for me since you can't be on any medications to donate. That being said, I wouldn't do it anyway because it's gross.
ReplyDeleteBut Nissa, sometimes people really need that blood. Me, I got vampire blood while in NOLA - it looses it's effectiveness, tho, once you're outside a certain radius of the city...
ReplyDeleteThe other thing is you're probably under the weight limit to donate, so you don't have to feel guilty (if you were so inclined).