Something We Never Share with the Mice

When I was younger, I once saw an experiment about mice in an Educational TV. The test was about the effect of drastic increase in population and the sudden scarcity of rations in food in the social behavior of rats. The little documentary first showed a very small group of mice happily living together in a frolicsome environment where overcrowding and food crisis is totally unheard of; then the camera focused on an overcrowded cage of mice given only with limited supply of grains. Soon, the competition for space and food in the latter set up became fierce. The mice in the second group became more aggressive and irritable until such time that they resorted to infanticides and cannibalism.

Earlier today, at the blood bank, I recalled the little experiment as I faced a group of harassed looking people as I explained that we ran out of blood types A, B, and O. I hang around and waited for scenes of infanticides and cannibalism but nothing of the Mice-ly behavior ensued.

Clients proceed to our window with a specific blood type in their mind. We, on the otherhand, give whatever they needed and ask for a donor with any type of blood in exchange. Since we ran out of Blood Types A, B, and O we cannot dispense anything and the clients refused to donate blood. So we asked each client to bring a donor with the blood type that they specifically needed.

The first client that we had, a military officer, was lucky enough that his own blood type matches the blood type that his sick child needed. However many were unlucky. A woman asked for Type O blood for her Type A patient, since they heard that Type O is the “Universal Donor.” But the thing is we didn’t have any type O and I doubt it if the patient’s doctor will risk his license with the wrong blood type. So she pushed her menopausal sister to donate blood, who we half-amusedly refused. Many, who were unable to process the unfortunate news, asked for further explanations- somehow they are calmed by our repetitions of the step by step operating procedure in the blood bank- from looking for a donor who matches the patient’s blood type to the payment for the blood testing. Others looked for some high ranking officials in the organization- as if that would help them. Some immediately left and scouted for blood donors.

The law of the jungle tells that the weaker mice die at the hands of the stronger and more aggressive competitors. But for the sick, when blood becomes scarce, at the end of the day, only those patients who are given with the necessary help survive. And I was amused when a couple of men approached me and said that they’d be swapping blood. The first man’s mother needed a type O blood, but his own blood type is B, while the other needed Type B blood, but he couldn’t donate a blood for his daughter because his blood type is O. So they swapped. I couldn’t believe that the people at the window didn’t think about this. If only they were nice enough to talk to or are generous enough to lend their own blood to the person standing next to them, then they wouldn’t have been that problematic at all. If only they were wise enough to think that someone, other that their own patients, needed their blood. And this is exactly what our organization lives by; VOLUNTARY SERVICE. Something we never share with the mice.

PS I am surfing the net while typing this post and I came across this.