Selling Blood; The Stab Lab
Wow. We've been getting a crazy amount of hits lately. At least partialy because of my cousin's cop story. Read it by clicking HERE. Check out the new home page, www.RockAss.net and please link my site and tell your friends. Thanks, KLJ
The stab lab, where a few bucks can be made (very few) in exchange for hours of sitting around waiting for test results so that a big needle can be shoved in your arm, your blood removed, seperated into plasma and that other stuff that isn’t plasma. The other stuff is returned to you and then you get a cookie and a Dixie cup of punch along with your payment.
I first went to the stab lab during a time when I was making an artform of finding ways to get by without getting a job. I recycled bottles and cans, panhandled and lived cheaply. My friend Christian told me about the plasma center, known to those who utilized it as The Stab Lab, where getting stabbed paid.
The lab sit on residential street in a run down neighborhood in a typical storefront type building. Entering through the glass front doors puts you in the waiting room, where the storefront windows let you feel like you're in an aquarium, for hours! You see, after filling out your questionaire and pissing in a cup and giving a small sample of blood for testing you have to sit and wait, for four hours at least, sometimes over six hours, while tests are conducted to determine if your blood is safe. You can't leave the building, lest you go out and contract one of the diseases they are testing you for, so bring something to read and be prepared for some fascinating people watching.
You'll be entertained for a few minutes at least filling out the questionaire, all about anal sex and I.V. drug use. You can get creative in your answers, but be cautious not to disqualify yourself. For instance, "Have you had anal sex in the last month?" Should not be answered, "Do you mean with a person?"
If you are a smoker the long wait is especially fun. There is a glass box in the waiting room and you can stand in it with four our five other smokers, puffing away while a fan above you does a poor job of removing any amount of smoke even worth considering. If you're out of smokes just stand in there anyway, you'll have breathed in a packs worth in mere minutes as the smoke soaks in to your cloths and skin and eyes and lungs. You exit feeling like you were pickled in nicotine.
No coffee is provided so a thermos and a good book are a must (the magazine selection is mostly Cosmo, vogue and hunting mags.)
There are people who have their sample of blood taken and then sit for two or three hours, but
find they can't take any more. Watching someone who has invested that much time already walk out the door to get a drink is indeed sad (note to alcoholics: Sneak a bottle in with you.)
When your results come in, providing you passed, you are called to meet with the vampire nurses who lay you down on a chair/bed hybrid, perfect for passing out in. The back room is full of such beds and you will not have blood removed in private. One of the vampires will stick you with a big old needle and the process of draining your blood and running it through the machine begins. In the machine the much needed plasma, a strange yellowish/orangey goo, is seperated from the less valuable stuff. You may feel a bit light headed but once they put back that less valuable stuff you start to feel a bit better.
There are generally enough beds to spare so you're welcome to lay there for a while if you're dizzy or if you fear the outside world having been removed from it for so long. You can also leave right away and walk around enjoying the high, the lightheadedness, jut be carefully not to become addicted.
Be sure to ask for you cookie and punch as they don't always remember to give them to you. One of the vampires might be trying to horde them. It's important you get your sweet snacks, they are needed to make this experience worthwhile since it pays crap. The first trip gets you $14. The next trip, around $7. A third trip puts you back up to $14. Eventually you get some sort of six pack bonus or something, and the free newspapers in town even have a coupon that get you a few extra bucks. Bringing a friend can also earn a small bonus.
When you're done your hand is stamped with a black light sensitive stamp that is damn near impossible to remove. This will prevent you from selling more than three times in one week. There are other stab labs in the city, and the ink at one of them comes off easily, so if you're desperate for cash, go there first.
I bored of going to the stab labs, but every once in a while I'd find myself absolutely desperate for a couple of bucks. I could write while sitting in the lab and that was kind of like being paid to write, my life's goal after all. When I went in and sold my own blood so I could take my then girlfriend out that night I considered it the most grand romantic gesture in the history of civilization. She was considerably less impressed, proof that she just wasn't the girl for me.
Read indy comic hot shot Jeffrey Brown's story HERE
My Cousin's brutal tale of being a beat cop in NYC is HERE
Swimming with dolphins in Gay Hawaii is HERE.
Being Will Ferrell is HERE.
And of course all of my own work tales are HERE!
and my home page is HERE.
The stab lab, where a few bucks can be made (very few) in exchange for hours of sitting around waiting for test results so that a big needle can be shoved in your arm, your blood removed, seperated into plasma and that other stuff that isn’t plasma. The other stuff is returned to you and then you get a cookie and a Dixie cup of punch along with your payment.I first went to the stab lab during a time when I was making an artform of finding ways to get by without getting a job. I recycled bottles and cans, panhandled and lived cheaply. My friend Christian told me about the plasma center, known to those who utilized it as The Stab Lab, where getting stabbed paid.
The lab sit on residential street in a run down neighborhood in a typical storefront type building. Entering through the glass front doors puts you in the waiting room, where the storefront windows let you feel like you're in an aquarium, for hours! You see, after filling out your questionaire and pissing in a cup and giving a small sample of blood for testing you have to sit and wait, for four hours at least, sometimes over six hours, while tests are conducted to determine if your blood is safe. You can't leave the building, lest you go out and contract one of the diseases they are testing you for, so bring something to read and be prepared for some fascinating people watching.
You'll be entertained for a few minutes at least filling out the questionaire, all about anal sex and I.V. drug use. You can get creative in your answers, but be cautious not to disqualify yourself. For instance, "Have you had anal sex in the last month?" Should not be answered, "Do you mean with a person?"
If you are a smoker the long wait is especially fun. There is a glass box in the waiting room and you can stand in it with four our five other smokers, puffing away while a fan above you does a poor job of removing any amount of smoke even worth considering. If you're out of smokes just stand in there anyway, you'll have breathed in a packs worth in mere minutes as the smoke soaks in to your cloths and skin and eyes and lungs. You exit feeling like you were pickled in nicotine.
No coffee is provided so a thermos and a good book are a must (the magazine selection is mostly Cosmo, vogue and hunting mags.)
There are people who have their sample of blood taken and then sit for two or three hours, but
find they can't take any more. Watching someone who has invested that much time already walk out the door to get a drink is indeed sad (note to alcoholics: Sneak a bottle in with you.)When your results come in, providing you passed, you are called to meet with the vampire nurses who lay you down on a chair/bed hybrid, perfect for passing out in. The back room is full of such beds and you will not have blood removed in private. One of the vampires will stick you with a big old needle and the process of draining your blood and running it through the machine begins. In the machine the much needed plasma, a strange yellowish/orangey goo, is seperated from the less valuable stuff. You may feel a bit light headed but once they put back that less valuable stuff you start to feel a bit better.
There are generally enough beds to spare so you're welcome to lay there for a while if you're dizzy or if you fear the outside world having been removed from it for so long. You can also leave right away and walk around enjoying the high, the lightheadedness, jut be carefully not to become addicted.
Be sure to ask for you cookie and punch as they don't always remember to give them to you. One of the vampires might be trying to horde them. It's important you get your sweet snacks, they are needed to make this experience worthwhile since it pays crap. The first trip gets you $14. The next trip, around $7. A third trip puts you back up to $14. Eventually you get some sort of six pack bonus or something, and the free newspapers in town even have a coupon that get you a few extra bucks. Bringing a friend can also earn a small bonus.
When you're done your hand is stamped with a black light sensitive stamp that is damn near impossible to remove. This will prevent you from selling more than three times in one week. There are other stab labs in the city, and the ink at one of them comes off easily, so if you're desperate for cash, go there first.
I bored of going to the stab labs, but every once in a while I'd find myself absolutely desperate for a couple of bucks. I could write while sitting in the lab and that was kind of like being paid to write, my life's goal after all. When I went in and sold my own blood so I could take my then girlfriend out that night I considered it the most grand romantic gesture in the history of civilization. She was considerably less impressed, proof that she just wasn't the girl for me.
Read indy comic hot shot Jeffrey Brown's story HERE
My Cousin's brutal tale of being a beat cop in NYC is HERE
Swimming with dolphins in Gay Hawaii is HERE.
Being Will Ferrell is HERE.
And of course all of my own work tales are HERE!
and my home page is HERE.
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