It’s taken me 27 years to become a blood donor. Was I really put off by a few questions about sex?
At lockdown’s very apex of misery, when all the novelty had passed and the sun wasn’t shining, when nothing was open and you couldn’t even remember what it was like when things were, Mr Z went into town to give blood. He came back high on his own genius. He had left the house with a legitimate purpose, and had had seven or eight conversations. Someone gave him an orange Club. He dined out on what he did for weeks, so long as you call telling me multiple times about the two separate people who gave him an isotonic drink “dining out”.
So, obviously, then I wanted a go, but whenever it came to making an appointment, a mysterious force stayed my hand: they call it “guilt”. I should have been giving blood regularly all my adult life, because I have a weird blood type, totally unreactive – anyone could use it. For all I know, a raccoon could use it. It’s weirder than just O negative – it has a variation so rare that, when my sister was born, she was one of only five known weird-blood carriers, and they made a documentary about her, two Russians and two people in Texas. Then I was born and had the same thing, but that’s not a documentary anybody needs to make twice.