My phone rang last Wednesday during HumBio lecture. Smack-dab in the middle — we’re talking 9:34 a.m. I let it go to voicemail and dealt with it after class.

It was an unknown 650 number. I thought to myself that there are exactly three groups of people who would be making a phone call at such an hour: controlling parents, drug dealers and over-possessive girlfriends. This call was from none of the above.

Message: “Hello, Mr. Hillard. This is the Stanford Blood Center. We haven’t chatted in some time.”

My brain: Odd. I don’t remember ever “chatting” with the Stanford Blood Center. And wow, this guy sounds somewhat like a reanimated corpse.

Message: “We’ve noticed that as of today, you’re eligible to give blood again. And we would be delighted if you were to give blood again”

My brain: These people pay such close attention! The very day that I am eligible to give again, they give me a call. And how excited they are about the whole thing! It almost borders on an obsession ... as if their lives depended on my blood.

Message: “We particularly like your kind of blood around here, and there is a great need for it.”

My brain: Cool! But who’s the “we” again?

Message: “I am calling to inform you of a new technique we’re trying out where we draw nearly twice as much blood as we have before. I can assure you, the pain you feel will be quite minimal. Some even quite enjoyed the experience.”

My brain: If I do say so myself, Stanford Blood Center, it almost seems as if you want rivers to run freely with the sweet nectar of my blood, perhaps even to shower upon you, nondescript and somewhat lifeless call-representative.

Message: “We can only hope that you will join us at our upcoming donations, happening at various locations around campus. It really is quite easy to give blood, and we would hope to see you there.”

At this point, I was thoroughly convinced that something was awry here. This man was devoid of normal human emotion. Excitement, pain, anguish — he could feel nothing.

I happily carried on with my day, but at 12:34 p.m. — exactly three hours later — my phone rang again. It was now a woman on the other end, one who shared her predecessor’s persistent, dry, soulless lilt.

For most of the four-minute message, she desperately listed screening locations that I already knew about (“Branner Hall, White Plaza, Lagunita Hall, Stern Dining Hall, Wilbur Dining Hall, etc.) She too emphasized — several times — that my blood was in great demand and that it was quite easy to give blood. She ended with the same reminder: “We hope to see you there.” No exclamation mark, only a period.

Late that night, it finally dawned on me. I ran out of the bathroom and down to the kitchen to get all the garlic in the house and then formed a barrier around my bed. I gathered all the wooden crosses I could find in this heathen secular university and sat in a well sunlit area. It all made so much sense: their lifeless droning, the calls at odd hours (no doubt delivered from a cave), the persistence ... even the slight Transylvanian accent. I should have known earlier: The Stanford Blood Center had taken to hiring vampires.

Anyone who knows anything about vampires knows that they have to be invited into your house in order to enter, and to guard against this possibility, I have yet to call back either representative. I have taken to carrying a miniature mirror with me so as to know the Stanford Blood Center’s minions when I see them (or don’t!). And I can’t remember if this applies to werewolves or vampires, but I acquired (at great expense) a set of silver bullets that I keep in my back pocket as the final straw.

My paranoid delusions have so far paid off. To the best of my knowledge, I have not joined the great undead army and my craving for blood is not much higher than it is on a usual day. My body, however ill-smelling it may be as a result of the garlic, is free of puncture wounds.

Still, I can’t help but recall reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula in high school. The sexual suggestiveness of the vampire’s bite was the most important element. Come to think of it, the female caller (let’s call her “Vampirella”) did have an oddly sensuous voice.

Stanford Blood Center, I am for now protected against your vampires, and I will proudly defend my status amongst the living, at least for the time being. If Dracula is right, however, it will only be a matter of time before attractive female vampires of the Stanford Blood Center grow desperate for sustenance. And when buxom vampires do come after me, well, what’s the point of resisting?