I've Got a Tight Grip on Reality

As I entered the room, all I could smell was a metallic smell and disinfectant. My stomach bubbled up at the smell as a edged my way over to one of the expensive armchairs, and perched on the edge of its luxurious red satin material. It struck me as odd at the time that they were using satin in a environment that was used to take blood from peoples arms. Next to the armchair, was a silver trolley with three draws. I looked on top and discovered a clip board and a fancy looking pen.

I picked the clipboard up and had a look at the paper that was attached to it, it was a health questionnaire asking all sorts of personal questions, so I took the pen, clicked the top and started answering them the best I could. I looked up every now and then to see what the other donators were doing while being sucked of a few pints of blood, and they all seemed to be keeping distracted with magazines and books and some of them were chatting to the nurses that were floating around.

After about 15 minutes, I had finished the questionnaire, and a nurse came over to take it from me so that she could begin the donation process.
"So, I'll take a few drops of your blood initially so I can distinguish blood type and check for any general problems, and I'll be back to set you up, would you like a drink while you wait?" She asked, as if she actually cared.
"Sure, do you have any apple juice please?" I asked politely as she pulled a small syringe from one of the draws in the trolley and a band to tie around the top of my arm. She took a small amount of blood, told me to hold a cotton pad over the top and walked away with the clipboard and my blood sample.

It was about 10 minutes later when she returned with a glass with apple juice for me. "Right, all done. Lets get you all hooked up and then I'll leave you to it, okay?" She said smiling at me again. I just nodded as she pulled out a needle that was considerably larger than the first one. I gulped as she inserted the needle, it was the most uncomfortable thing I had experienced in a while. She instructed me to keep pumping my fist and left me to it.

After about half an hour, she came back with a grin. "My my! you have produced rather a lot, lets get you unhooked and a snack and you can collect your donation funding from the front desk. It took her a minute or two to get me to stop bleeding after she took the needle out, but she slowed it down and put a plaster on the top to prevent it staining my clothes. I put pressure on it and followed her to get a snack, whatever it might be.

After devouring the two cookies she gave me, I walked out the way I came and bumped into Tom who was loitering near the door.
"Ahh! Sorry Teagan! All done then?" He apologised and asked at the same time. I just nodded as he walked back to the entrance area. "I'm all done!" I said to the lady on the desk. She smiled at me and made comments about how quick I was, and how it couldn't have been as bad as I thought, but I was distracted by a certain beautiful looking man across the room.

"Teagan?" Tom asked and waved a hand in front of my face. "Yes! Sorry! No, it wasn't as bad as I thought. I'd do that again." I replied.
"Good!" Piped up the lady behind the desk. "We got 3 pints from you, and your a rarer blood type, so that's £900 for the occasion, we'll see you in 16 weeks Teagan."

My jaw hit the floor. £900 pounds was a LOT of money. Oh my JESUS! I was going to go straight to ASDA, and do a big shop.