I have done what feels like a terrible thing: I blocked the American Red Cross on my phone because they won’t stop calling me.

I used to donate blood and plasma regularly, ever since I was allowed to. I remember donating to the blood drive that came to my home town and set up in the elementary school gym. But I was not allowed to donate after I was stationed in the United Kingdom during the outbreak of mad cow disease. The Red Cross asks you a whole slew of questions before they stick you with a needle, and one of those questions went something like, “Did you live or work in the United Kingdom or Europe between the years [whenever the outbreak occurred].” When I answered “yes” to that question, that was the end of my regular donations.

Until last year when a blood drive came to the office building where I work. I wandered to ask if they still had a rule against donors who were exposed to mad cow disease, and to my great surprise they said no! I donated a pint of whole blood on the spot!

Eight weeks later (you have to wait eight weeks between donations of whole blood), I donated another pint, and I didn’t have to wait for a blood drive to come to the office building because there’s a Red Cross office right across the street. Donating was as easy as signing up online, walking five minutes from my office building to the Red Cross, then signing in.

And I think that’s when the trouble started. To schedule an appointment online, I had to create an account with the Red Cross and give them my name, address, phone number, all the things. After that, I began to get email messages, text messages, and phone calls reminding me to schedule my next appointment. Not too often, but just often enough to be annoying.

But it got much worse after I donated platelets. One of the technicians I chatted with told me there was an urgent need for platelets, so the next appointment I made after that was to donate platelets. You don’t have to wait eight weeks between platelet donations, you only have to wait seven days. As soon as I made my donation, the phone calls and emails started coming.

Unfortunately, donating platelets is a very unpleasant experience for me. I don’t like having a big-bore needle in my arm, but I never minded donating whole blood because I could usually fill a bag in less than fifteen minutes. I could easily tolerate that. Donating platelets takes much longer, though, usually two hours, and it’s not just one needle in one arm, it’s two needles, one in each arm. I have to sit still with my arms extended for two hours, trying not to think about the huge needles in the crooks of my elbows. I’m not kidding when I say that after an hour and a half I felt like pulling the needles out myself and running from the building bawling like a baby.

So after the first time I donated platelets, I didn’t call back for a long time, but they sure called me back often enough. After a couple months passed, the Red Cross was calling me almost every day and emailing once a week. I finally scheduled an appointment and donated platelets again, but that didn’t stop the phone calls or emails. After that appointment, I called the Red Cross to find out how I could get off the call list, but I couldn’t figure out how to navigate the phone tree to speak to anyone.

They called several times while I was on vacation. I always swiped them into voice mail. And they called the day after I got home. That was the call that got me to block them.

I feel a little guilty about it, but only a little. After all, I’m giving them my blood products free of charge, and I’m pretty sure they don’t give them away to whoever makes use of them, so I believe the least they could do is leave me in peace between donations. I’m going to make another appointment and donate again. It’ll happen. But without the phone calls.