Mr. Liquidity

Last week I was pimped out to the highest bidder.\nI walked in, filled out my forms, passed my health examinations and laid still for an hour while she had her way with me. Everything was safe and sterile. The insertion didn't hurt as much as I had anticipated, but looking at it filled me with a strange uneasiness. The foreign thing didn't belong there; it throbbed under my skin and took from me something that only time could heal. When I left the bed, I was shivering. I took back my body, but I could find no warmth save for the crisp $20 bill that was placed in my hand before I went about my day.\nI had lost my plasma for the very first time that gray afternoon, and along with it, my innocence.\nConfessing to "donating" my plasma for money has since been something that I've done with a mixture of pride, embarrassment and irony. I didn't decide to go under the needle for the well being of my fellow man. I did it because Andrew Jackson's face is just truly that handsome. But as certain confidants have made an issue in conversation, shouldn't that bother me?\nIn "On Duties," Cicero speaks of our daily decision-making as the end result of five questions that reflect on morality and expediency. For the sake of the reader, we'll jump straight to his fifth inquiry: the decision weighing morality against that which is advantageous. \nSo there, in the waiting room of the Biolife plasma collection facility, we, the college many who simply could use an extra greenback every now and then, reflect on what we're doing and why we're doing it. With Cicero, we take the plunge down into category No. 5.\nClearly we have been made an offer that many of us cannot refuse: an hour of our time for $20. We can do it up to twice a week. Expedient? Yes, that is my final answer.\nYet what really is the difference between selling ourselves through one orifice or another? Sure, we rationalize the taking of the money with the knowledge that our plasma will be going to a worthy cause. But if that's our motive, why not donate blood, give away our money, or even worse yet, give away our time for free at some animal shelter or elderly home? Though the situation doesn't tip the scales toward the morally despicable, it doesn't exactly scream canonization either. We wade into moral purgatory for the opportunity to buy DVDs.\nSo what do we do?\nBeing of no moral stigma, we undertake it freely. However, the catch is that donating plasma has no moral worth, either. Turning it into a job leaves one without place, without backbone. Unfortunately, today that's a body part that surgeons aren't rushing to manipulate with "enhancement" pills or reconstructive surgery.\nMe? I sold out. Yet in the end, I really didn't feel that bad. I didn't feel good, but I didn't feel bad either, promising myself that I wouldn't visit with the regularity of a 9 to 5. However, when one compares shilling Old Navy T-shirts for ballpark minimum wages with picking up $20 for an hour's worth of siphoning life-blood, one asks: "And the difference is?"\nIn a world without knights and where honor is a word that sells fictional movies but not the news, we're given opportunities to do service for money. That much is placed on our tables. Our education has taught us to take advantage of beneficial offers, and we listened very well.