Monday morning dawned bright and cool. Autumn had arrived over the weekend with a faint hint of wintery weather energizing everyone in my tiny household. Even poor demented Galena, a mystery-breed cat we'd adopted years before, emerged from her secret garage hiding places among still-unpacked moving cartons to aimlessly torment the other cats and stare at sections of wall she'd ignored through the torrid summer months. I woke early, eager to get to work and make my humble contributions to the success of my beloved employer.

Before leaving I took a few minutes to walk through my modest pepper and herb garden, gently tending the delicate plants and tying up branches that seemed droopy that day. The epazote was getting a little stringy, so I pruned back a couple of stalks and brought the leaves inside. I never paused to consider that later that morning I too, in a sense, would be pruned, during the annual company blood drive.

I arrived at work and immediately plunged into activities left off the day before. Some mail had piled up, and I had some papers to review. It was almost half an hour before I rose to grab a wake-up Diet Coke from the generously provided break room down the hall. Only then did the sight of a young man in blue medical garb remind me of the appointment I'd made the week before: I was to give blood at 10:00 AM sharp.

A brief pang of fear gripped me and I froze where I stood. Should I really go through with this? Was it worth it, after all? But the feeling passed, and I scolded myself for such childishness. I'd given blood before, and I knew full well that I had nothing to fear. Nothing at all to fear---or so I thought.

The medical staff were running slightly behind when I appeared at my scheduled time. I left and made myself busy, meeting with other engineers, discussing current problems and plans for the week. Though I struggled to repress them, the little fears gnawing at my subconscious were still there. I joked and laughed harder to compensate, all the while keeping an xclock in the corner of my eye. Twenty minutes passed.

I returned and asked again about the schedule. "Go on in," I was told. Ok, this was it. I strode down the hall trying to bolster my confidence. Another engineer passed me sporting a "Kiss Me: I Gave Blood" sticker. I decided against that, but it cheered me up a little.

The conference room I knew from countless heated technical meetings had been transformed into a makeshift field hospital. Three donors lay on elaborate cots, their blood draining into baggies while they smiled and chatted. Some were waiting for the pre-donation interview, which would determine whether we measured up to the high sanguinary standards of the Central Texas Regional Blood Center. I sat down to wait, only to be called to the booth a moment later.

The interviewer had clearly done this before. He fired away with question after question, and I answered to the best of my abilities. I had to ask him to repeat himself sometimes to be sure I understood the question, and because I always have some self-doubt in such situations. Had I been in jail in the past year? I didn't think so, but should I really just say "no" with so much confidence? What if he gets suspicious? It's like the feeling I get walking out of a store carrying a single item after turning down a shopping bag: I always hold the receipt out so that it's clearly visible to the anti-shoplifting squad I'm certain waits camouflaged just beyond the door.

"Have you eaten a good meal in the last forty-five hours?"

"Yes," I replied. Since those dark years in the dank back alleys of Tangiers I'd been eating fairly regularly, and certainly over the weekend I'd verily eaten like a pig. And that morning I'd had an unusually large breakfast: three dates, a Rye-Vita cracker, and a good solid quart of black coffee. (Generally, I skip the chewy stuff and just have the coffee.) It was not until much later, of course, that I realized I'd misunderstood the question.

"Great then, step over there and he'll take your bios."

So that was it. Everything they needed to know about my blood right there in the yes/no answers to a couple dozen questions. Ah well, that's mechanized post-modern society, after all. I sat down to have my temperature taken (and speaking of mechanized, I was surprised to have a real thermometer stuck in my mouth instead of being probed by one of those ear-sensor things) and my blood's pressure measured. As I was not apparently on the verge of bursting, I was handed my blood bag and sent to the next waiting area.

More casual banter. Everyone seemed in high spirits, and I did my best to contribute. How could I cast a gloom on this almost party-like atmosphere? I struggled anew to fight the terrors, trying my best to keep my eyes from resting on the blood drainage tubes snaking down from the three victims' arms.

"If you'll just hop up here we'll get you started."

My time had come. Cheerily I sprang upon the cot, grinning at the technician as he swabbed antiseptic over my arm. I had turned down the "numbing shot", as no-one else there looked particularly numb, so I braced myself for the insertion of the blood spike. A sharp sting and that dull feeling of being violently stabbed soon subsided, and I obediently worked the mushy yellow ball to force my lifeblood out, out, out into the bag.

A chill swept over me as my cardio-vascular system struggled to hold on. Still I smiled, chuckling at the wise-cracks of the others. Where was that technician anyway? I'd been pumping away for several minutes already; surely they've got enough of me in that awful bag by now. I wondered what safeguards were in place to prevent the bag from being ripped open by the weight of the blood. What if it got too full? Would the needle shoot out of my arm in a spray of blood, spattering everyone in the area?

Finally he returned and detached the cold steel leech. I applied pressure to the ugly wound like I was told, and elevated my arm. The ceiling tiles above me swirled, and I began to wonder why George Burns's face appeared in so many places among the patterns of dots. Two former victims sat cooly eating their cookies and looking towards me; what did they want? Were they in fact looking past me, past the cot---were they looking at my blood? Drops of sweat broke out on my brow.

"Just take a seat over there and rest for a few minutes; grab a cookie."

Right. A cookie. What next? I began to suspect that the technicians might in reality be rogue amphibians, here to steal the secrets of our four-chambered hearts. I moved warily over to the cookies piled on the table and carefully shook the baby eels off one of the bigger ones. I sat down next to another donor, who leered at me while a small parakeet pecked insects out of his trunk.

I gazed out across the room. The technicians moved from donor to donor slowly, chanting a strange nursery rhyme and playing tiny harmonicas. I began to think that I might be getting a little light-headed. "I think I have to lie down," I said out loud.

A rush of wind blew through my hair. A cold greenish glow surrounded me on all sides. Ahead a bright circular spot of light was looming closer and closer. Was this it, then? Was this the Light of the classic near-death experience? Should I move towards it, or should I struggle? Could this finally be The End?

No, no, not the end, I realized; I was merely at Schlitterbahn racing through one of those water-tube slides. I emerged and was caught in the soft paws of a pair of Giant Pandas, who whisked me up into the waiting mini-van. A mime floated in the window and explained to me that the Caesar Salad would not be available on today's lunch cart. Loud voices erupted on all sides as the farm implements began their dance. I grew annoyed, and the announcer making "chookie chookie" noises in my ears made me even more upset.

I turned to leave the mini-van only to find that the family behind the reception desk had decided to keep my shoes after all. Blowing bubbles, the ringleader informed me that under no circumstances would any more chopsticks be allowed outside the cage. This news broke my heart, and I cried out for another helping of toast. I ran through the curtains, tearing aside the mounds of feathers and teeth. I could hardly believe my ill fortune; if only this were a dream...

I opened my eyes to the sight of a cold towel descending on my head. A man was holding my feet in the air, a fact that momentarily made me wonder which side of the dream boundary I was on. More cold towels, and soon I began to recognize the smiling compassionate faces of my co-workers. Clearly, my body had reacted to the loss of blood more seriously than anyone anticipated.

"Have you really eaten recently? Sometime in the last four hours or so?" one of the blood boys asked.

Oops. I didn't want to get into the whole quart-of-coffee debate, so I just mumbled something about a healthy macrobiotic snack. Besides, I didn't see how it made much difference; they were draining blood not pumping my stomach.

"Next time I want you to eat a full meal, a big breakfast." He seemed rather annoyed. Well, at this point next time seemed like a merely academic concept. I started to ask when the ambulance would show up, but thought better of antagonizing him and kept quiet. Somebody was walking around making threatening gestures with a camera so I concentrated and maintained a look too repulsive to be captured on film.

After a time my vital signs were re-examined, and though my blood pressure had dropped to about that of a koala I was pronounced fit to go. I stood, carefully, and waved to the brave volunteers lined up awaiting their turn. Oddly, the spectacle of my collapse and delirium seemed to have had little effect on the others, almost as if they'd expected it.

Looking back now, I suppose the whole thing was a learning experience for me. Though it was traumatic, I can take pleasure in the knowledge that my little sacrifice makes it possible for millions of others to live free, in safety and good health, forever and ever. I can begin to put the pieces of my life back together, and even look forward to someday giving blood again. For life, as they say, is not always easy, not always sweet and delectable like crunchy nutty topping on an ice cream cone. There will always be the hard times, and these we must accept along with the good.