Penn has taught me a lot about being rejected. First, though, we need a story about rabies. So one morning last year my mom wakes up to get ready for work only to find that there is a bat flying around my house. How a bat gets into my house? Who the hell knows. But my mom, the brave woman that she is, captures the damn thing in a Tupperware container and sets it free outside. She calls the animal control department who tells her the bat might have salivated on her children while they slept; so everyone needs to go to the hospital and get rabies shots.
So it's my mom, step-dad, grandpa, three brothers and me sitting in the emergency room on a Tuesday night in December. The short nurse calls me in so I can get my rabies shots. She closes the curtain behind her and tells me to pull down my pants. Done and done. She then proceeds to spin me around and inject a shot into both the left and the right cheeks of my ass, and finishes me off with a shot in the arm. "You'll have to come back five more times in the next month for more shots." Those five visits were the erotic highlight of my young life.
After that debacle, flash forward to a blood drive at Penn in September. After waiting in line for an hour, I finally get to the little area where they poke you to see if iron fillings fall out and they ask you all sorts of questions like, "have you exchanged drugs or money to have sex with an albino pygmy male from the nether-regions of Mars since 1980?" But the question that was the kicker was, "have you received a rabies shot in the last year?" The woman thanked me for coming out and trying my best, but my blood wasn't going to be accepted.
I figured this was a one-time deal. I mean, I had never been rejected from anything before coming to Penn. Well, since then I've been rejected by Mask and Wig, Management 100 TAs, the UA, the dudes who guard the doors to open-house frat parties and the girls inside those parties after I've snuck in through the bathroom window.
I get knocked down, but I get up again. Sure, maybe I could stop trying to flirt with that girl in my class who already has a boyfriend, but I love the pure adrenaline rush you get when you're getting rejected for the ump-teenth time today. Oh, and now I'm rabies free, so I finally went to give blood last week. During the procedure, the nurse snapped the needle and my blood was dripping on the floor. She said, "I'm not sure if we can use your blood."
Oh Red and Blue, how I bleed for you...
