Dawnee: "You know, I could really go for a cheeseburger, is it ok if I walk down to the cafeteria? It's just down the hall?"
Nurse: "As long as your feeling ok, sure"
Me: "Ummm..."
Dawnee: "Ok, let's go"
Me: "...ummm..."
Keep in mind that Dawnee, who weighs half my weight has just given up a large supply of blood and has spent all of about 1 minute afterwards to recuperate, but being that I'm the dumb guy that I am, I decide to just keep my mouth shut. She seems to think she's ok, and she'll be mad at me if I tell her I think she's wrong, besides, what's the worst that can happen?
Did you ever notice that when you ask yourself, "What's the worst that can happen?", it usually does? For those of you who haven't seen the Compaq building I work in, the hallway from one end of the building to the other takes about 10 minutes to walk. Really, it's absolutely huge. We leave the nursing station and Dawnee and I are chatting and joking as we traipse happily down the hall. Dawnee stops abruptly and looks at me with a concerned expression. She says she feels a little weird so we stop in the hallway for about a minute while she regains her composure. What ever it was it's gone now... I laugh, guess she should have waited a bit longer. Ok, she's feeling fine again. We take a few more steps forward and she wobbles.
Me: "Dawnee, are you ok?"
Dawnee: "That was weird"
I convince her that sitting down right here is probably a good idea and she does. Now she feels ill and there is a rushing noise in her ears... Hmm... this isn't good. I lie her down and prop her feet up a bit when I notice that we are lying down in front of a set of huge doors that lead to a manufacturing area. Huge doors with no windows in it for people to see out of before they come crashing through. I don't really want to move Dawnee for a few mins until she is feeling a little better so I sit down against the doors so no one can open them. I joke with Dawnee a bit to take her mind off her situation, but it's obviously not working and we've been here for about 5 minutes now. I'm just about to carry Dawnee back to the nurses station when a lady walks by and politely recommends that Dawnee cough.
Alright, now that I've learned a bit about it, coughing helps force the blood back to your head and thus releaving some symptoms. At the time, it seemed really stupid, and I could see in Dawnee's face that she though it was dumber than I did, but she managed a polite cough. The lady was kind enough to head to the nurses station and fetch a nurse for us.
Nurse: "What happened?"
Me: "She just gave blood and got woozy"
Nurse: "Did she eat or drink anything?"
Me: "Ummm... no, and I tried to make her but she overpowered me and ran, it's all her fault!" (Like I'm gonna take the blame on this one?)
Well, we decide it might be a good idea to move her back to the nurse station so we fetch a chair with wheels on it and help Dawnee into it.
The entrance to Compaq is made of a big glass sliding door with a desk where you badge in at, followed by a door to the left which leads to the nursing station and right next to it a large set of double doors that lead to the rest of Compaq. A large set of double doors that everyone who comes in or goes out of Compaq have to go through in order to get to work. Were coming from the hall and Dawnee makes the observation "I think I'm feeling better now" and no sooner has she gotten the words out of her mouth, she goes completely limp. I actually do a good job of remaining calm, I've been expecting her to pass out for some time now, and now she's done it. I try to maintain a balancing act on her head which is now just limply flopping back and forth. The nurse is in front of me and hasn't noticed it yet.
Me: "Err... she's gone"
We decide it's best that we lie her down. We get through the large double doors and I grab her by her armpits and the nurse grabs her by her ankles and we lift her up out of the chair. We've now got her about 4 ft' off the ground when I kick the chair out from under her and realize I really don't have a good grip on her. Her shirt is kinda moving out from under me and I can see the inevitable outcome. I hold her 4 ft above the ground, her shirt is ripped off her limp body as her body slips out from under my grip leaving me just holding her shirt. Her newly freed semi-naked body plumets head first into the ground as the nurse is still holding onto her feet watching on in horrid fascination. Of course Dawnee is going to wake up at this point and look up at me wondering why I just dropped her on her head, and why I just took her shirt off in the middle of the entrance to work. I think that would pretty much ruin any chance of taking her out on a date.
Sometimes I have really bad luck, fortunately, today is not a bad day. I grip her a bit tighter as she can't feel anything and quickly move to set her town. I'm sure I left some bruises, but I think it was worth not dropping her on her head. We now have Dawnee safely on the floor and she starts to come to.
I had always thought that lunch was a good time to give blood since we didn't have to take any time off work for it. It hadn't occured to me that we would be blocking the only door into Compaq for 1500+ people by setting an unconcious body in front of it. We've now drawn quite a bit of attention as people watch the drama unfold before them. The security guards rush up and begin a barrage of questions for Dawnee.
Security Guard 1: "We need some information for our report, what happened?"
Dawnee: "I gave blood and passed out?"
Security Guard 2: "Are you doing any illegal drugs?"
Dawnee: "Uhhh.... no..."
Security Guard 1: "Are you pregnant?"
Dawnee: "No..."
Security Guard 2: "Are you seeing anyone right now?"
Random Compaq Employee Watching on from the crowd 1: "Yeah, see if she's single!"
Dawnee: "Uhh... do you really need to know that?"
Security Guard 2: "Umm... Yeah, it's ...uh... a required field ...um... on our report"
Random Compaq Employee Watching on from the crowd 2: "See if she's likes Audi's! (Sorry, Private Joke, ask if you really wanna know)"
I can see where the whole line of questioning might have been entertaining for the crowd of people now gathered, but it wasn't making Dawnee feel anymore comfortable. Eventually we move Dawnee a bit from the door, but people now still have to step over her to get into work. I'd always thought that the people at Compaq were good decent people, but was surprised to see that no one really seemed to care that there was a girl lying in the middle of the hallway, they just looked at us as if we were doing some form of performance art, stepped over Dawnee, and continued on their way. A good 20 people stepped over us in the course of about 5 minutes, and no one said a word, well unless you count the two people who stopped long enough to make fun of us.
The nurse keeps her under observation for a bit longer but we do eventually get released and make it to the cafeteria and Dawnee can get some food in her. Our manager Tedd is a little surprised to see that we come in an hour late from lunch, but finds it terribly amusing that we're late because Dawnee passed out. I'm sure it will give him plenty of ammo for the next few months.