Day 21
This morning I was just about to drift back off to sleep when I heard the piercing sound of the fire alarm. I sighed and sat staring at the box on my wall emitting such a shriek and tried to decide if it was bearable or if I had to leave. I thought about this for ten minutes, comparing it to the decibel level of certain concerts I'd been at and finally deciding that I didn't have the proper ear plugs to remain indoors. I put on a haphazard outfit and eye shadow. I trudged down the hallway with my fellow sleepyheads thinking all the while that I should've put on eyeliner.
We finally made it outiside and were met with a neighbor saying, "Jesus, you would've been dead by now, it took you long enough." I asked her if this were a drill she said she didn't know. Everyone camped out only a few feet from the buzzing building. A girl in a bathrobe inquired as to if the sprinklers were going to go off. I laid down on the sidewalk and wondered what my computer would do after being covered in water. We finally found out the alarm was set off by a low rate prankster in the pool table area. Everyone trudged back into the building. I couldn't tell if I was more pissed that I couldn't find out what my wet computer would be like or that the prankster didn't choose an awesome time (like 4 am) to pull their shenanigans. Really, we're in grad school pull something slightly more dangerous.
After I finally left the intact building for good today I met up with a friend in the Student Union Building. I walked in the door and had to go back out to check the signage to see if I was in a head shop. The entire walkway system was covered by double decker poster displays. Students milled around checking out the selection and tried to decide if they were the Bob Marley pot-smoking type (Marley blowing smoke), Beer bottles from around the world type (pictures of beer bottles), low rate sex kitten celebrity women type (Jessica Alba), guy movie type (The Big Lebowski), "artsy" type (Van Gogh, Warhol, Abstract Flowers), or the odd Audrey Hepburn type (Audrey Hepburn, literally).
But, the best parts of this adventure were the "Where's Waldo" poster and the guy at the check out line. While I waited to purchase my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles poster (turtles in a half shell, turtle POWER!) a short, chubby guy with a sneer edged the line along. He found posters from his stash and rolled them up. For one kid he rolled them with the colorful side facing inward, "This is so no one can see that you actually bought a Twilight poster." I almost asked the chubby man to marry me but I was too afraid he would turn me down based on my choice of poster.
After working another function (translation: job where I haul ass for no money under the guise of being a "bartender") I decided that I would much rather be a janitor in a medical laboratory filled with feral rats. Here is a partial list of why:
1. I might actually get tipped, whatever the rats don't eat is fair game, right?
2. I won't have to deal with people telling me exactly how much ice they want in their free soda.
3. I won't have to wash glasses, plates, or silverware.
4. I won't have to get the rats drunk simply for my own entertainment; they are already fucked up.
5. Rats can't talk.
6. They would never tell me how to do my job (see Reason #5).
7. They probably have some totally fucked up medication lying around those labs.
8. I would have friends.
9. No snobby Lit major co-workers.
10. Job security. No matter how psychotic the environmentalists get they will always test stuff on rats.
The expanded version of this list will be published in 14 volumes by Knopf in 2017, please contact me with a foreign bank draft to reserve your copy.
-Canadian Castaway
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