Fancy a Pint?

I felt quite good today because I was finally allowed to give blood. I've been prevented up until now due to body piercings and pregnancies.

I felt even better when I found that one of the staff was an old friend I hadn't seen for twenty years and he's just the same lovely guy I knew then. And he's still just as crazy because he's still climbing without ropes even after falling off a mountain years ago and breaking both his legs.

Then I felt good coming back to work, because if more people gave blood, more people would survive nasty accidents like my friend who came off his motorbike years ago, skidded fifty feet on his head, landed head first in railings and tore our souls apart by staying in a coma. Then I felt good about giving blood because the people who gave him their blood saved his life and instead of being in the vegetative state the doctors warned us he'd be in the for the rest of his life, he survived the brain operation and walked out of the hospital thanking the nurses as he went. I feel good because I still see him and it's great to hug a person who makes you laugh who you thought you'd never see again.

And now I still feel good because one of my closest friends has gone a clear year since having the cancer removed from her liver after collapsing on her son's birthday. I feel good because the night I received the phone call to say she was likely to die, the people who gave all the blood to her because her own liver was bleeding so profusely saved her life too. She was sad a while ago because she's 42 next month. I reminded her she nearly didn't make it to her 40th and that I was glad she was 42 because it meant I still had my friend.

It's only just under a pint and it doesn't take long. Why don't more people do it?