I gave blood today, for the first time ever.

Which means I’ll finally get to find out my blood type.

When I was in 8th grade, we did blood type tests in science. After an ordeal of pricking my finger during which I felt nauseas, the science teacher came to me with the little bottle of fluid to mix with the blood and discovered he had run out. So everyone found out but me.

At some point in my young teenagerhood, someone had told me that I was too skinny to give blood. I took whoever it was at their word, and never revisited the question of giving blood, because I was terrifically squeemish about all things below the skin level. In 9th grade, I had to run out of health class during a graphic filmstrip to avoid passing out.

Sometime after college, the myth of being too skinny was busted (possibly because I was not so skinny anymore) and had had enough experience with needles to figure I could handle the ordeal.

Plus, I had heard there were cookies.

But it never worked out. Blood drives never seemed to happen around me, and I wasn’t aware you could just go give blood randomly. I’m not even sure how you would go about doing it even now. With all the other things in life that need to be scheduled, todo’d, and figured out, giving blood never rose to the top of the list.

I signed up for a few, a couple at the companies I worked for, one at ‘ work. I either got called out of town or the drive got cancelled every time.

But today, though I waited with each passing hour for the inconvenience that would crop up preventing my bloodletting, I finally got it done. In 4-6 weeks, I’ll learn my bloodtype.

I did not feel woozy or anything, and I spent a pleasant half hour reading a book.

I’ll probably do it again.