This past tuesday I'd written a general email to the entire Zivago lab. Among other things, I said I'd be checking on whether we could find some spare animals (elsewhere) to practice surgery on. We did have one rat that wasn't technically being used--yet he'd been put down 3 times and was not stable under anaesthesia, even with a larger dose.

More importantly, I sent out another mass email yesterday that said we had no spare rats to use.

So this morning I felt calm, collected. I checked my hotmail inbox. There was a note from Zivago (which is rare). The message was simple: "We have [spare] rats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I went from 0 to 'fuck' like that; the speed of sound was a gimp by comparison.

I'd left out that I'd checked with the rest of the labs on our floor for spare rats; I'd also left out that this rat didn't stay under for long. At the time I thought I didn't need to do either. Dr. Ziv almost never replies to my emails so sending it was more a corteousy check than anything. It was geared toward the new undergrads.

So, of course, I hastily wrote him stating that I'd checked Dr. Bane's lab and came up empty. I also mentioned that using the rat we was risky: increasing the dosage any more could potentially kill him. I didn't feel using him would be ethical.

I received no reply. In terms of worry, I broke the 'fuck' barrier at mach 5 about an hour afterwards. I mentioned the situation to Mom and she said I was justified. I decided to call and leave a phone message that basically repeated the hasty reply email. Still nothing.

Then I discovered my junk mail box. In it I found an email from Dr. Ziv addressed to everyone. It stated we always had spare rats on call. Key thing was that it was sent AFTER my first email (stating that we might not get spare rats)...but BEFORE my second email (saying we had no rats).

So, basically, I'd just completely contradicted Dr. Ziv (in front of the whole lab) because an email he sent ended up in the crap pile--along with Vicodin ads, ways to enlarge my penis safetly and naturally and, of course, several letters from foreign business investors.

I wrote a second email that asked for clarification on where we could get these spare rats. I also apologized for causing confusion.

Just as I hit send, though, something occurred to me: I hadn't mentioned that I'd lost his letter in the junk pile. He'd still think that I hadn't been paying any attention to what he wrote--or that I somehow didn't care.

This bitch had to be rectified STAT...but first I had iced tea with mom. After the iced tea I called again. Dr. Ziv answered. My voice had a faint wafting spray of desperation to it. I explained how I hadn't seen his email etc. etc. etc. At first he seemed...well...utterly indifferent...and afterward also seemed utterly indifferent. This was a good sign. He asked me if I'd be doing a surgery tomorrow along with Santa Barbara girl. I said if we had the rats available then sure. That was that.

But still I wasn't satisfied. My mind turned to the next logical conclusion of worrying: I hadn't told him I wrote that second email BEFORE I called him the second time. Would he think I sent that second email AFTER? Would he think I was out to lunch or just utterly careless? But part of me kept thinking that he was an intelligent man, that he'd read the time stamp on the second email--that there was no need to worry.

Well, I got some studying done, but it kept clawing at my brain. Eventually I rushed up here, clicked onto my inbox and saw no reply. By now he's left for the day so that means only one thing: he realized I was just covering every communication media to make sure he got the message. Oh sure he might think I'm just a tad bit obsessive, but other than that things'd just go on as is.

So now I feel reasonably stable after 5 hours. Maybe I shouldn't have had the iced tea.

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