I stare back down at my introductory psychology book. The beast is more playful than the old test aids, now just rotting metal flotsam on some cabinet top. The orange dayglow cover opens to a chapter on vision. The concepts are familiar but some keywords aren't; I'm quite happy to fill in the gaps.

----

I began thinking back to Dr. Zivago and the lab. Wednesday hadn't produced much fanfare for my return. Hell, Dr. Ziv didn't appear to notice; he's the debauchedly distant grandfather type like that. I learned he'd assigned some projects to Attila, Midget and Santa Barbara girl (see Cast List); they'd even divided up the undergrads into who was who's people. For some reason my name and projects hadn't been included.

This omission pissed me right the fuck off. SB girl hadn't come around in the summer except to weigh rats once a week. She hadn't done anything the quarter before. Suddenly she had a project. Suddenly people were setting up practice surgeries without consulting me to get the word out. I felt left out of the loop.

I even started to think that Dr. Ziv was slowly edging me toward persona non grata status. It would figure, I thought: I wrote his experiment procedures, got them approved by the elders at the Animal Research Council when he'd snubbed them, bred his rats, ran his experiments, supervised and helped his undergrads and done paperwork--all to be subverted based on whim or forgetfulness. It sounds a little paranoid (and I admit it was at the time), but Dr. Ziv advocates the "treat your long-term staff like shit" school of thought.

On friday, though, he was more collegial than gruff. I ran through some of the usual checklist with him. He either agreed or overreacted slightly. Seemed as though he was his old self again. I was still pissed off but I was edging toward giving him the benefit of the doubt.

----

One of those practice surgeries I mentioned was yesterday, saturday. I had to show. Thankfully Attila and Midget were heading up the event. I just had to supervise and watch.

I woke up at 8:30am, drove to Mt. University, parked in one of many open parking spots and walked to the lab. Normally I take one of their express shuttles. These beasts weren't running so I had to strike it out by foot--all 19 blocks of it, with 95 degree weather to boot. Fortunately I was only mildly sweaty--as opposed to resembling refridgerated pasta--when I went two stories underground.

Noone was there. It was 15 minutes until the surgery. 'Fucking typical', I thought. I waited in the lobby at one end to let undergrads in. Eventually Midget came through on the other end and propped the door open. I figured if she wanted to get the heat in case eco-terrorists came down to steal animals, eh.

Attila came down in a flurry of apologies, with newer undergrads seeping in here and there. Attila had brought a friend of his, an exceedingly shy Irish girl we'll call Moor. She was animal sympathetic and wanted to see just what we did with animals. I trusted Attila's judgement and held off on my reservations.

Dr. Ziv actually showed up for 45 minutes while Attila and I were waiting for the Knock-Yo-Ass-Out drug to take effect on the rats. He started to spin some yarns about playing lots of sports when he was younger. He'd broken his ankles 14 times, played basketball, done crew (i.e. that bizarre rowing ritual Brits and Ivy Leaguers are tickled pink by), etc. etc. This lead to a general 'I did this sport in High School' conversation. I never went for team sports (duh) so I just kept checking the animals and not saying jack.

Eventually Dr. Ziv left and it looked like the first rat was down. Suddenly I was coordinating surgery room preparations, making sure the other rat was fine, explaining how rats become comatose to the new undergrads so they didn't go nuts, etc. etc. I actually felt like a head supervisor.

At one point I was moving back from the surgery room and Moor was sitting out in the hallway. She looked up at me and smiled a quiet smile. I wasn't sure how to respond to this. I smiled back; that seemed appropriate. I decided to ask her if she had any questions about what was going on. She spoke in a voice that was barely a mousy whisper. I literally had to lean in to hear her. I basically bantered about animal research, the fact that noone uses cats and dogs because that's a deathtrap in terms of bureaucracy and press, stuff like that. At one point Midget walked by us, stopped, looked, giggled to herself and walked into the injection room. Midget was partly right: I thought Moor was attractive, but she didn't have any fire to her--that and I assumed she and Attila had something going on.

--{{The following account will likely be disturbing for those who cannot stand the thought of animals suffering. You've been warned.}}--

It was around this time that we noticed the rat was still holding on to consciousness. Normally animals just fall right asleep. These were much larger rats than normal, though, and the fat could readily absorb the drug. One thing led to another and the first rat started to have breathing problems, hacking out breaths in a mucously sortof sick way. One of the new undergrads brandished a straw that Dr. Zivago had laughingly given us in case we needed to perform rat CPR. Well, we did. She thrust the tube down the rats throat and blew into it for several turns. Afterward someone else would lightly pump the chest. The rat kept coming back, hacking for a little while, then randomly not breathing.

Midget and Attila were getting increasingly bothered--especially Attila--so I raced off to see if a more practiced surgeon could give some advice. I found one guy who suggested a drug, atropine, which basically forces your body to release adrenaline/epinephrine. I went back, injected the animal then took him to his heating pad in the surgery room.

We resucitated him 4-5 times but he kept slipping. The animal was dying. The drug had some effect but it didn't look like enough. Everyone increasingly voiced the idea that the rat should be put down. I gave the drug another 10 minutes before nodding to it. Attila and Midget were the supervisors but, being the senior staff member, I ultimately had the power to authorize the euthanization. I finally had decided to give the go-ahead after another relapse. Midget and Attila figured that we'd just wait and see if the rat could survive on its own, then wait for it to die. I didn't like their decision. If I had to end its life it'd be quick; it was their show, though. The animal's heart went for another 5 minutes before it stopped. Thankfully the animal was likely still unconscious--otherwise I would have euthanized him regardless of what others said.

We decided that we'd still use him for surgery practice. We didn't want his life to be wasted in vain, after all. That leg of the whole affair was a god awful bore. I kept wanting to get back and study for my exam. I ended up leaving right as they finished the procedure, saying that we could just leave the body in its cage and wait for monday; Dr. Ziv didn't have any body bags and I wasn't about to ask around for one. I was pawing around a black bag I'd found in the freezer when someone called me. I went into the surgery room, answered the question and then shot a glance at Attila.

"Oh, is that a bag for the rat?" He asked.

"Naw, has packaged brains from three years ago it looks like."

"And you brought it in here because...?" He asked with a condescending edge. He was trying to either be amusing or piss me off.

As an aside, I don't tolerate that shit from anyone--least of all my subordinates.

"Because someone called me in here and I was looking through the bag," I said in a flat tone.

"Oh."

That was the end of that.

----

5 minutes later I was ascending up into the light of day again. 18 blocks of walking later I slid into my car with a tired huff. It'd been a long ass day. I turned on the ignition, acknowledged the rat's contribution then rode off back home.

The smell of woodsmoke was still pungent in the air.

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