Clans of metal stretched across the landscape, set in ash and dabbed with off-orange yellow streaks: below the eyes, around the belly, slick between the breasts. I faded in and out of realizing the seat and my ass were separate objects.

Easy parking and a bus ride later, I was hastily gathered at 7:55am in the lab meeting room with two other people. Dr. Zivago was going to be late as usual. I went down, came up and nursed a Red Bull, my celestial teat for the hour.

Dr. Ziv picked Attila's project to repeat, detailing the theory behind it. I vaguely scribbled annotations and acronyms, crocheting the loops of well-trod, sodded bits of information. I knit a haphazard sweater of iron from the shit that trickled down his chin. I was thankful: he wasn't as loud and Captain Ahab-esque today. I could just point to the almost exact same lab meeting from 4 months previous, add some new jokes and call it art and science.

I was then suddenly reminded that we had a practice surgery today. The objective: to implant a tube in a rat's head. Somehow I ended up co-leading the fray. I hadn't planned on it so much, wanting instead to check my e-mail and do administrative work. It went as expected; nothing tragic, nothing difficult, just the same old type of surgery I know backwards and forwards.

Sometime before the end, Attila caught my attention. He wanted to go out to lunch, since he'd gotten all the digital snapshots he wanted for documenting the whole surgical procedure; he even sported some interesting posed shots with the unconscious rat and assistants looking studious.

We decided to take it old school: we ate in one of the dormitory cafeterias. And so there I was, absently chewing on a piece of sausage and onion pizza and getting nostalgic over complex carbohydrates of yesteryear (yesteryear and 7 months, to be exact). The sky was an azure dome of faint white make-up beyond the giant window on the left. The sky swept down and to the right, along multi-ethnic breeds of academic buildings, growing golden along the tops and toward the horizon. It helped me to remember what it was like those few years ago, and to enjoy it at least one last time.

And the food was bad, so that sealed the nostalgia but proper.

----

Next, however, is my tale of woe for Monday. I tend to harp like Linda Tripp caught in a bear trap when it comes to crap like this, so I'll list the details. Now mind you, all of this is true:

*I come back from lunch and am informed that all of the rat pups over in Snifter Hall--which is now our alternate, extremely restricted area of Discordia--need to be weaned. I'd planned on doing this already with help. Trouble is, the help wasn't there at the time I wanted them.

*First I try finding where exactly Snifter Hall is. Y'see, it apparently is integrated into two other buildings sporting Geomancy and Astrophysics, yet all three are separate. It's sortof like the Holy Trinity crossbred with Ted Nugent and the CIA. Why? I kept walking around the buildings, constantly trying to find out how I could access the basement level of Snifter Hall. Apparently, though, there were only two locked doors leading down. This took 45 minutes to figure out. Neither of those doors said where they led to.

*I go back to the original lab and find Head Animal Dude talking with Dr. Ziv. Dr. Ziv gives me another line about needing those animals weaned. I tell him I'd planned on doing that as soon as we got the bastards settled into Snifter--y'know, so the animal/cleaning staff wouldn't have 3 carts to move over instead of just 1. He sortof repeated himself just to make sure I'd do it. Head Animal Dude mentioned I needed to keys. I mentioned that Over-Worked Office Woman thought I didn't need them. I quickly resolved to get the key in question, knowing now that Over-Worked Office Woman hadn't quite understood my original request to get into Snifter.

*I go to Over-Worked Office Woman. I ask for key. She roots around for 8 minutes and says there are no more copies. I tell her I'm in a jam. She has me sign a temp. claim form for the only key the psych. office has.

*I go back down to the animal cage cleaning office. I ask Head Animal Dude what the best way of moving cages to Snfiter are. 20 minutes and roving consultations with all but one of the staff members later, we have no idea. He says to wait tomorrow. I say we don't got time for that sorta time. He tells me to wait for Bald Black Dude.

*I sit down in corner office; Dr. Ziv comes by; I move to main cleaning area to ready a metal rack of 20 cages to move over to Snifter (since 'weaning rats' consists of moving all the pups from the mother's cage into new cages).

*Thankfully, K and Hideyoshi have arrived back in the corner office. K has 45 minutes to help me with stuff. I get the plastic tubs, put on the lids and fetch water bottles. She throws feed into the metal lid food hopper.

*Bald Black Dude comes by and gives me the scoop on how to get this rack to Snifter--the only way we can get to Snifter. I take this knowledge and devour it. He and everyone else goes home for the day. Good thing we caught him then.

*K and I proceed to wield this narrow rack of 20 cages up a service elevator, out a back door, and along bumpy cobblestone-esque trails at a curving downward angle to the street. A staff woman looks down, pities us, and guesses we're off to Snifter. She gives us directions.

Mind you, we're wearing lab coats and rubber gloves while carting around rat cages in broad daylight.

*Moving forward again (and downward at a few slopes), we get to the side of a campus street. We lift the cage up a curve, banking sharply down a 'differently abled' ramp, and finally end up in front of the Geomancy building. The dozen or so onlookers didn't quite know what to make of us. The Geomancers looked on like deer caught at a rave.

*Receiving yet another set of instructions from a well-meaning latin gentleman, we learn we've gone too short of our goal. Apparently we were supposed to loop-around. We get confused. We subsequently run into one of the psych. cleaning/animal staff. He's surprised and happy to see us. It's an underestimate on our side of the fence re: him. He is going to Snifter.

*He leads us to Snifter, past crates, gas canisters and a loading dock that could give Mos Eisley a run for its Sci-Fi money. We come to a magical green elevator that has KGB-like lighting installed.

*We arrive on the dead silent floor of Snifter's basement level. We're on our own. Now, out of all those professionals I spoke to, none of them actually knew--definetely--which room the rats were in. Fortunately only two rooms had card readers. Our room was especially special: it had two giant red signs cautioning us with extreme caution, threatening not only arrest but 24 hr police surveillance. I was tired and pissed off at this point, but that deserved a high-pitched "sweet!" It really does.

*We pushed through into a kitchen--with floor drains for the blood (?) and lef-over beer (?). To the right was more of this brown-tiled, drain-dotted landscape. We had two gigantic rooms. We could produce a small army of vermin there.

*I'd forgotten crap I needed to do the weaning at the original lab. K had to leave. I wished her well, got all the crap, forgot some of the crap, got all the crap again, re-organized the crap and then shlepped to Snifter.

*I then spent two hours picking up mother rats carefully, putting them in a separate cage, picking up baby rats, critically inspecting the distance of their genital mounds (to determine their sex), then segregating them into different cages at either end of the rack. See, rats are sortof like southern people from the extremely rural, backwoods of the backwoods regions: they'll fuck and impregnate anything of the opposite sex, including kinfolk.

All this time, I'm worrying about finishing on time to get the spare Snifter key back to the office--since I'd have to pay a hefty fine or come back on tuesday to return the damn thing.

*I quickly realize going fast is not an option. My brain numbs, I lose all energy, a headache begins to develop. The silence drones on with the sound of machinery humming in the distance. I feel no empathy, only annoyance and a deep-seated bitterness.

*Finally done, I exit properly by swiping my staff card. I get halfway to the original lab. I then remember some crap I needed. I go back down to Snifter, swipe in, get the crap--then open the door without swiping out.

Problem: just opening to door leads to police being dispatched within 2 minutes. It's a highly, highly restricted area. Suddenly I realize what I've done, close the door, swipe my card...and wait.

*By this time I'm so tired and far-gone that I don't care about anything. I fall back against the wall and slide down. I give the cops until 5:45 to come. I hear doors shutting and opening a few times, but nothing. I guess dispatch noticed me swiping out and decided I'd just been forgetful.

*Finally, I stop by the lab, ask Dr. Ziv to return the key on tuesday...and he agrees. Well, he puts the key on top of a manilla folder near the entry way to his office and nods, saying "Yeah, good," but he agreed.

----

By this time I had no energy. I looked like the walking dead and felt similarly. A few vertebrae in my neck had dislocated from the stress and the dangerous climate down in Snifter. Getting on the bus at 6:30pm, I finally gave in and closed my eyes.

Time passed.

The bus eventually stopped. I dragged myself off it and slowly walked back to my car. I'm not sure how I got home; can't remember some of it.

----

And so several hours ago I was sitting here, popping Bayer like Pez. I thought talking to people online might help, but most of them made the headache much worse (which includes none of you, since that would be just dumb for mentioning on my part). I finally smacked away the whole thing, ate and re-adjusted my neck.

I am now feeling much better, though still somewhat achy.

I proclaim bah on this day that has just ended.

----

Still, the time in the cafeteria was memorable. It balanced things out.

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