So I’m not one to believe in prophetic dreams, fortune tellers or anything of that sort, but even I can’t explain this one.

Earlier this week I had a dream…sometime. I was dreaming about normal dream-like stuff, involving ice-cream and sharks, and then it had to get all weird on me.  I dreamt that I was about 10 or 11, playing on the playground.  I’m playing tag with a bunch of kids.

“Save!”  A little boy says, running up to me and touching me on the arm.

“But, you’re not ‘It’,”  I say, thinking that he said ‘tag’.

“I said, ‘Save’,” He says.

“Save what?”

“It’s not save…what…”  He says, looking at me with his eyes wide.

“Save where?”  I ask tentatively, and he shakes his head.

“You should be asking ‘Save who?’,” He says, staring at me obviously.

“Tag!”  A little girl runs up to me and slaps me on the arm before adding, “You’re not supposed to be standing still…”

I wake up from that dream thinking I need to quit playing PS2 games so much in my free time.

Fast-forward to yesterday.  I’m driving home from work and I remember that the BloodCenter of Wisconsin is along the way from the research I did on the internet the other night.  I pull into the driveway.

“We’re not Red Cross,”  The woman behind the counter says immidiately, frowning.  I asked her if I could get some information about their blood drive, since I was no longer happy with the Red Cross.  It’s like I said something about the bastard child of the family; suddenly everyone is frowning at me.

“No I know you aren’t the Red Cross, I don’t like them because of…”  I say, exasperated.  Sighing, I pull up the sleeve of my long-sleeved business-casual shirt.  She gasps, but in the next second she is smiling and waving someone over.

“Yes, you can talk with her,”  She says a moment later to a woman about my age, with a long white coat and white pants on.  She ushers me into another, quieter room that looks like an office.

“Oh my god what did they do?!”  The woman exclaims after I show her my bruise from giving blood to the Red Cross.  She gives me a bunch of information and pamphlets, and pretty soon we’re laughing and joking like old friends.

“Well, I usually don’t tell people about this if they don’t ask, but there is a program called the National Marrow Donor Program that we participate in, or N-M-D-P,”  She says, explaining about bone marrow.

“Bone…barrow?  As in wheelbarrow?”  I ask, sounding like I ate a bowl of crazy-flakes for breakfast.

“No,”  She says, laughing, “It’s bone MARROW.”

She says that there is a lot of people that need it, a lot of sick people.  I ask if it hurts, and she says no.  Of course I don’t believe her, I mean, taking something OUT OF MY BONES.  Yeah, that’s gotta hurt.  I get up with all of my new papers about the bone marrow program and shake her hand.

“And, think of it this way, you can save…” She starts, coughing in mid-sentence.

“Save what?”  I ask, having strong deja-vu going on by now.

“It’s not save what,”  She says, before adding, “It’s save who.”

I stop shaking her hand for a split second before pulling away.

“There are a lot of kids and adults that have diseases that require bone marrow,”  She says.  We shake hands again.  She tells me to think about it overnight, and come in tomorrow, or another day, when I decide if I want to do this or not.

That night I researched like crazy the bone marrow program.  As it turns out she is right, if you don’t have a common allele or whatever it is, then you most likely will never be selected as a donor.  I go in today and the same woman is there.  She takes out a package that says “DO NOT TOUCH” and “CONTAMINATION WARNING” all over it.

“Alright, now you just have to swab your mouth with these,”  She says, leading me into the same room and handing me the small box,  “Now I can’t touch it, except the outside so just open it up and read the instructions.”

“So I take it the government now has access to my DNA after this, right?”  I joke, putting the last gigantic Q-Tip into the foam holder.  She laughs, but doesn’t answer directly.

Ah well, so what if I’m on the government top 10 most wanted by tomorrow.  I don’t know if anyone really is chosen to be a donor like me, the woman hinted to the fact that they need more people of non-Caucasian race to sign up for this. The lady also said that it is completely voluntary and I can withdraw my name at any time. However, I’m most afraid if I am chosen, that I will hyperventilate even before it is time to do anything.

I’ll probably never be chosen anyways.