Walk of Shame.

Lately, my karma hasn't been right, and by lately I mean since birth. I am having a run of such crappy luck that instead of feeling down about it, I'm actually in awe. Before I step outside my home and am struck dead by some sort of frozen waste accidentally jettisoned from the septic system of an aircraft passing overhead and falling to earth only to crush me like a bug, I thought I would do a good deed and try to rectify whatever karmic situation is causing such calamity.

I do good deeds all the time. I tell my friends about my dating life so that they may feel better about whatever situation they have going on. I clean my lint out of the dryer so the next person to use it doesn't have to. I actually go ahead and sit on the toilet seats in public restrooms so that I don't spray everywhere and nobody has to wait in line at the ladies for very long for me to pee and perform acrobatics at the same time, which nobody should be doing. Ever. I risk the good health of my bare thighs and ass because I am a good person. However, the universe has not been kind lately so I tried to make up for the mystery deficit by giving blood.

If you get back what you give, I thought blood should put me in a pretty good position, cosmically speaking. Canadian Blood Services came to my company and set up their clinic near the cafeteria and I was pretty happy. Not only would I get to do something good for somebody else, but I would get a free cookie, some time away from work, and whatever alcohol I was planning on drinking later on would go straight to my head. There was no way I could lose.

I made my appointment and showed up at the designated time. Apparently every single one of my colleagues had the same idea, because the clinic was very busy. I filled out my form in which I denied any knowledge of having mad cow disease, or being a gay man before 1977. Or something like that. While it's true my gay friends have declared me to be an honorary gay man, it shouldn't count.

This form gets filled out in a waiting area outside of the nurses "offices." For anybody who hasn't given blood, you fill out one part of the form and then meet with the nurse in private to talk about anything you might not want to declare in public, like having mad cow disease.

Every chair in the waiting area was full, with more staff members showing up without appointments and standing around waiting to see if anybody actually in the process of giving blood would pass out. It's what I was doing after I finished my form, so I can only imagine everybody else was taking bets on anybody looking overly pale.

The nurse examined my arms for track marks and approved of my answers until we got to the section about travel outside of Canada. I recently got back from Thailand, and this was a problem. Health Canada approves of some areas in Thailand, but not all. I went to some places that were not on the Health Canada list, which means my blood is no longer fit for consumption.

I tried arguing, because it was silly. Some places we travelled to were in such close proximity, it was like saying Calgary would have been safe, but Banff is a danger-zone. Or Vancouver is all-clear, but look out for Burnaby. Health Canada's ignorance about the geography in Thailand was going to cost some poor accident victim the gift of life - my gift of life. My good deed was getting a nasty looking red stamp all over it. Canadian Blood Services did not want my blood. I was tainted.

What normally happens after donors see the nurse in the private office is the nurse leads the donor to a bed and the donor lies there for a while bleeding into a bag. What happened with me was I walked out of the nurse's office and the nurse escorted me past all of the people in the waiting area to make sure I left. I suppose she thought I was so desperate to do something nice for humanity that I was just going to launch myself at one of the needles and refuse to leave until I was down at least a pint of the good stuff.

People actually stared at me. I would have stared too, wondering at the scandal behind my rejection and escort out of the premises. I left with dignity, my head held high, stopping only to tell one secretary I knew that she should reconsider sex with prostitutes. It's just not worth the price.