Anything For a Buck

While perusing Craigslist last week, I came upon an ad placed by a medical research company looking for poor unsuspecting fools people to give blood in exchange for payment. It directed me to a website to visit and register, and being that the office is right in my very own city, I thought, "eh, what the heck." I submitted my information and while I was out one day last week someone from their office called. Luckily (I guess?) Chris was home because a) he actually answers phone calls from those outside of his sacred circle of trust while I most definitely do not,and b) our voice mail gets checked probably an average of twice a year. He set up an appointment for both of us to go in so we could double our money. 

We met at the office on Monday afternoon with all of the kids. I went in first. They led me to a room and told me to lie down on the table and that was just not happening. I need to be sitting up for a blood draw. They didn't have any of those nifty chairs with the shelf to lay your arm on, so my only choice was to sit up on a table with nothing to lean against. I figured I've had my blood drawn often enough and this should be quick, so no big deal. 

Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that the chick who was about to stick me with a needle had no idea what the heck she was doing. She kept asking her two co-workers questions that it seemed to me she should have known the answers to. She had to re-tie the rubber band around my arm repeatedly because she didn't know where it was supposed to go. I was starting to get nervous. I have the biggest, juiciest vein on my left arm that medical professionals love because it is so easy to get to. Well this clueless broad missed  my perfect vein. That's pretty much when I started to feel sick. My arm was bleeding for about 10 minutes and I began to feel dangerously close to passing out. I started sweating profusely, my hands started to feel numb, and I fought the urge to tell them "never mind" and hightail it out of there. Someone brought me a juice box and I persevered until the clueless one's slightly more experienced colleague stuck me the second time. Now I know they told Chris when he made the appointment they would be taking three tubes of blood, but instead it turned out to be seven.

I stumbled back to the waiting room and let Chris take his turn in the torture chamber. They stuck him three times and ended up taking blood out of his hand. We got our checks immediately, and I'm glad to have the extra money, but next time they call me the answer is going to be a firm "no." Chris said he'll do it again. He's masochistic like that.

What outlandish things have you done to make money?