How to increase participation in blood donation organizations.
Thursday, August 26, 2004
I've had another one of those all too often misfirings in my brain that results in crackpot ideas. This time the idea happened while I was donating blood at The Blood and Tissue Center of Central Texas. When you donate blood, after they've stuck you with the garden hose size needle, they have you squeeze on some little foam ball every five seconds.
Well, I was sitting their thinking about how I have to squeeze this thing and about how I don't have a girlfriend right now. I thought about how if I did have a girlfriend I could bring her to the blood and tissue center with me while I was donating and I could squeeze her one of her butt cheeks instead of the foam ball. Then it hit me. If the blood and tissue center wanted to get more people to donate blood regularly, then they should hire cute girls and guys to come in and "be squeezed" by the donors. Think about it. They get a pint of your blood and you get to squeeze a cute person's butt cheek for anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes. Everybody wins. Good Lord, just think about how much fun you could have if they did the same thing for the people who sold and/or donated plasma. That's about 3 hours of cheek grabbing goodness.
I told my idea to the phlebotomist who was helping me, but she didn't think that they would do it. The reason she cited was that many guys and/or girls might lie on the questionnaire just to get to the booty grabbing. I thought about this and decided two things. The aforementioned objection is invalid for two reasons. One, most people wouldn't go through being unnecessarily stuck with a needle just to get a booty grab. Second, even if there were people lying on the questionnaire, the screening processes for the blood would eliminate them as donors. And, the increase in the number of viable donors who are donating blood would outweigh the costs of the screening. Besides, can you put a price on saving a person's life? (If you are a doctor, don't answer that question.)
Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 4:14 PM
Posts
