There’s a job title that I hadn’t considered but is obviously perfect for me: Vampire Hunter.

I finally managed to scare myself into going to the doctor to ask why I am downtrodden with the Verts all the damn time. The doctor took my blood pressure (after deciding she needed to use the Fatty McFat Arm Cuff on me because I am so obviously corpulent, except it promptly fell off my less-huge-than-she-thought arm – take that, Dr. Skinny) and asked a series of invasive questions (honestly, by the time she got to asking my thoughts on the reverse cowgirl and how I feel about tea bagging as a sport, I began to wonder if I had mistakenly walked into the other kind of clinic). She told me that she didn’t think I had anything deathly serious and that I was probably low on iron (dashing my hopes that I am Iron Man) and sent me along for some blood work at the lab down the hall. Super! Off I went.

Except the primary side effect of having blood withdrawn is feeling weak, faint and dizzy. I am already AT the weak, faint and dizzy stage – getting blood drawn on an empty stomach was, quite frankly, not the best idea I’d had since I used to walk along the lower breakwater during violent windstorms. Also, there’s an inherent danger when I have to get blood drawn – namely, I don’t have any.

(this is why I would make a good Vampire Hunter, get it? I don’t have any blood, so vampires could suck until dawn and they would still be hungry and I would still be un-undead)

I warned the Blood Taker that I am without blood, and she chuckled politely. Then she couldn’t find a vein in my right arm, so she went to the left. Nope, no vein. Back and forth between the two arms until she thought she felt a pulse, so she whipped out a baby needle – I HATE baby needles – and started poking away. I’m not squeamish or anything, but she lost the vein and started fucking my arm with the needle to try for red gold. She eventually gave up and went back to my right arm, this time using a grown-up needle. Same problem. No veins, no blood, and all the arm fucking in the world wasn’t going to make blood come out of me. She finally gave up on me altogether because a line was forming in the waiting room and people were staring at me in horror, and called in the expert – Randall!

I gave Randall the same warning about the no blood, and he laughed. Oh, he was going to get blood out of me – he was going to take it out of my HANDS. Out came another baby needle (ow ow ow), and Randall’s magic touch made my juices start flowing. He got three vials of blood out of me and sent me away with three band aids, a pounding headache, more holes than when I started, and anticipation that I will soon stop having to plan my day around how many hours of vertical time I can manage.

My hand hurts. However, I have Tiger Tiger ice cream and that just about fixes anything at all.