Friday the 13th Strikes!

I've gotten into the habit of donating blood to the Indiana Blood Center every two months when the blood mobile comes around.  Today was no exception, but it was also Friday the 13th.  My morning schedule was busy, but it looked liked I could fit everything in:

• 8:00am Brief introduction to potential employer
  
• 8:30am Donate blood 
  
• 10:30am On-Site interview
  

Fate had other ideas.  After my morning intro, I asked around to see if the bloodmobile was ready.  It wasn't.  Apparently, the bloodmobile from Kokomo had broken down, so another one was coming in from downtown Indy.  When it arrived (just a few minutes after 8:30) I asked if they were ready, and they asked for 20 minutes for the everyone to arrive and get settled.  No problem, I though, donating only takes a few minutes and I'll still have plenty of time to get to my interview.  My office is on the Northeast side of Indy, and my interview was on the Northwest side, so I figured 30 minutes would be a good buffer for travel.    At 9:00 I stopped in again at the bloodmobile.  I finished up my paperwork, and then the technician came in to do the finger prick, temperature, and blood pressure.  Oops, no blood pressure cuff.  Whoever packed up the second bloodmobile apparently put the wrong case of equipment in, and it was missing a blood pressure cuff.  So someone drove off to pick one up while I waited.  Twenty minutes round trip they said, still plenty of time to donate.  So I'm having a snack with the crew at around 9:20 when they realize that all of the thermometer strips are expired.  This invalidates the temperature I had given, and they have to call the person fetching the blood pressure cuff to turn around and get thermometer strips as well.  Guessing that it would be another 20 minutes before they were back and I could even start to donate, I had no choice but to leave.

I feel kind of bad, as I think donating blood is an important thing to do.  Unfortunately, Friday the 13th worked some magic against me and the bloodmobile today, and it just didn't happen.