The Hybrid Man

A, B, O, AB. If you are someone like me, who wishes Grey's Anatomy to end soon and forever (if I thought any medical staff behaved like the staff of Seattle Grace, I'd never go near an hospital again), then you've also heard, when transfusions are involved, the order to "type and crossmatch" the blood. You know that mixing types can be dangerous. There's more, of course, but who cares? I can remember sitting with groups of friends who, for whatever reason, revealed their types. "Oh, you're type A? I'm AB positive!" "How interesting!" Pause. Change of subject.

Ignore these meaningless facts

The classification of blood into types omits everything truly important about blood, which, in my experience, has a little-known dimension that, for those of us who must live in it, is overwhelming and mysterious.