SAN DIEGO — On November 22, San Diego Chargers held their 33rd blood drive at Town and Country Hotel. Being a blood donor and a daughter of a major Raiders fan, I thought it would be funny to bring home Charger souvenirs. With that in mind I attended the blood drive.

Walk-in attendees paid a $5 entry fee. If you donated blood you received a refund of your money with the perks of a free Chargers blood drive shirt that you could get autographed, and a free picture with the Chargers pn hand.

Town and Country was packed. I arrive around 1:30pm, signed up, paid the fee, and then entered a room to donate blood. Before I entered I asked one of the helpers “How long is the wait to donate blood with all these people?” She responded, “Oh don’t worry, it will be about an hour”

There were eight steps in the process of giving blood. The first three were the basic sign-in process and filling out the paper work.

Steps four through six were getting registered in the San Diego Blood Bank computers, getting your fingered poked, and taking the results to the nurses. Those three steps had me in line for about 45 minutes.

In total I had been waiting in line for about an hour, and I was close to giving blood. I went into the last room, and there I waited for an hour and a half to meet with a nurse, who told me that I am not eligible to give blood due to my blood count.

Disappointed, I then had to leave the room. I left and found the shirt station, at which I asked, “can I have a shirt?”

“Do you have a green slip saying you donated blood?”

“No I was denied, they said I could not donate today”

“ Without that slip you cannot get a shirt”

“So without the slip, I cant get any of the perks?”

“Yes, that’s correct, sorry”

After three hours of being at Town and Country, I left with a wristband that cost $5 and all my blood. I felt it was a total waste of time.

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Boyd is a student in Media Comm. 132. She can be reached at [email protected]