"This will be your biology classroom," said somebody.
"Students are not to use the elevator," said somebody else. "The teachers have to move large things up and down it frequently. Please use the stairs."
"Your lockers are in the basement."
It wasn't until later the painful enormity of these facts all cohered together for us.
As is the habit of many new students I religiously avoided eye contact with all other students, exchanging only greetings with my admissions counselor, and found an aisle seat near the front, for maximum powerpoint viewing. As is also the habit of anxious new students, I'd forgotten that 2 minutes prior, whilst still on the street outside, I'd texted my husband a message that would require a response.
Suddenly, unmuted, a nerd sound to end all nerd sounds began its alarm from deep within a zipper pocket of my book bag.
The girl across the aisle turned to look back at me while I fumbled the phone.
"Is that [nerd sound] your text alert?" she said.
"Yeah," I said.
"Awesome," she said, and smiled.
I'd made a friend.
~~~
"My kids were whelped in a vet clinic," said my Terminology professor. "They grew up knowing a heck of a lot more about animal medicine than any normal child should. But this one time, when my son was young, we were at a walk for Alzheimer's or something and we were talking to somebody else with a rescued Pit Bull, and my son goes 'MOM. Why does that pittie have four legs?' Poor kid. All we ever had were rescues from dogfighting rings and ones that had been hit by cars. They're all amputees."
~~~
"I'm a dog person," said Animal Tech. "I mean, cats are fine. I have nothing against cats. But give me a dog any day. Cat people are weird. At the vet clinic I work at, we had somebody bring in their cat to have it euthanized. She handed it over. The cat was already dead. I swear to God. They'd been carrying around a dead cat in their arms. The techs decided the least traumatic thing would be to pretend the cat wasn't dead. We took that dead cat and pretended to euthanize it, then just ushered the owner out and told 'em not to worry about the cost; it's fine. Go home. It's been a bad day. Yeah. They just handed us a dead cat.
You know what else cat people do? I had somebody with a bunch of cats. Whenever one died, they'd put it in tupperware. Just to hang onto it for a while or something. I don't know."
I thought to myself, I hope they at least kept it in the freezer. I should've asked.
"Actually," Animal Tech went on. "I should tell you guys, while I'm thinking about it... take cat bites seriously. I had a cat bite me right down to the joint in my finger once. Tiny little hole. I went septic because I was afraid going to the doctor for a puncture would make me a wuss. Yeah, ended up in the ER at 3am and was getting prepped for surgery by 6. I was in the hospital a week and almost died. Had three surgeries on this hand, actually. Seriously, you're not a wuss. Get that looked at. But moving on to the cat body language lecture... cats are great, you guys. I love cats. We have the best job."
No comments:
Post a Comment