I had to have my blood taken after my doctor’s appointment on Monday morning, and I still have the bruises on a Thursday evening. That’s just not right. I look like a junkie with tracks all over. I don’t remember ever being this delicate—so easy to bruise, so long to heal.

…not to mention so inadequate as vampire bait.

I did what is normally done prior to getting blood work done. I fasted for 12 hours, sat at the high chair with the padded arm rest, laid out my arms, and let the lab technician have her way with me. She in turn tied a tourniquet around my upper arm, tapped inside my elbow for a vein, and … found absolutely nothing.

She couldn’t get a vein to pop up.

She tried the other arm. Nothing. She went back to the first arm. Still nothing. Tying the tourniquet a little tighter did nothing. Having me squeeze a stress ball until it nearly tore in half did nothing. Persistent tapping with her fingers did nothing.

I have no veins.

She managed to find a vein on my right arm after many tries, and she decided to go for it. When I asked what I could do to make finding a vein a lot easier the next time, she suggested I drink plenty of water. Then she stuck me with the needle as I watched in (ouch!) fascination, and the blood began to flow and fill the—uh-oh, the flow stopped right there. She changed the angle of the needle a little bit (fleeting anxious thoughts flew in my head), but the flow still petered out before it even gave a tenth of the tube’s worth.

I sighed. “I should have guzzled a gallon of water before coming.”

A bruise was already forming where she stuck me. She staunched the pitiful bleeding with a cotton ball and taped it. Then more undoing of the tourniquet. More tying of it on the other arm. More swabbing of alcohol. And all in vain, for there was still no vein.

“I guess that doesn’t make me an ideal candidate to give blood, huh?”

The technician shook her head and said, “Nope!” She called to the other technician about taking over for her. His name matched the one on all the neat certificates and awards on the wall, so he must have been their best technician there. After he took care of a couple of other patients, he came over to where I sat and searched for a vein.

This arm. That arm. Back to this arm. The tourniquet was like a hot potato.

He decided the best place to get blood out of me was my right hand. I have some nifty looking veins just above my knuckles, blue and bumpy and fat with blood. I asked if it would hurt more on the hand, and he admitted that the hand might be more sensitive to pain. Again, I watched as the needle went in (ouch!), anxiety and fascination at war with each other within me. This time, the blood flowed a little more easily, filling maybe an eighth of the tube … before it petered out again.

I am a bloodless little freak; that’s what I am.

He changed the angle of the needle, then again and again, hoping to regain the flow, and I worried that I might panic and faint. I wasn’t quite comfy with the feeling of the needle point stuck somewhere in my hand. It was in there so long, and he kept moving it around as if he were cross-stitching some homily on an embroidered pillowcase. I held my breath. I gasped. I whimpered a little.

“Are you OK?” he asked, as if concerned that I might actually faint.

“I’m fine. Just a little anxious.” I worried that they might have to stick me again and again just to get a decent amount of blood.

He finally gave up on the hand—pulled the needle out and staunched the flow (what little of it there was) with a cotton ball and tape. And the needle and tube? They went in the trash … because he was going to start all over again in another spot. My jaw dropped a little because I knew there was at least some blood in that tube and that none of it was going to be of any use. Irrationally, I thought, but what if that was all the blood I had to give?

I am a bloodless human pin cushion doomed to live the rest of my days in the laboratory.

He tried the right arm again, in a different spot. He tapped an area that looked pristine and almost white. I don’t know how he knew there was a vein there; it didn’t look like I had any. But the third time’s the charm—it had to be, right? To reinforce the good blood luck, I looked away this time instead of watching the needle go in (ouch!), and after he stuck me, I returned my gaze to the spot and saw the blood flow like a mighty river into the tube. When it became full, he switched out the tube and put in another one.

So somehow, the woman with no blood and no veins, the bane of all vampires, managed to give two tubes of blood. And I didn’t faint.

I do, however, still have a godawful blue and purple bruise on my arm from the first drawing of blood and a slightly smaller, darker one on my hand from the second drawing. The generous, invisible vein of the third drawing, on the other hand, didn’t bruise at all.

Vampires, take note. Pass me by. Pass me by.

The veins you want are too far in, and the other veins are stingily dry.

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