June 6
My Photoshop magic skills do include, and this might be the only magic I can weave, getting rid of pimples. Can you spot it? Nope. I didn't think so. Feel the magic, my chillins...
A few weeks ago, I had to to to the library and borrow a journal (a real journal, not a...well, look, if I have to explain this to you, you are most likely too confused to be walking around unassisted, so just there and stare blankly out at the screen. There, there. Everything's fine) so that I could have some slides made of figures. Did that make sense? There was a journal. I needed slides made of 6 figures, so rather than trying to find them online (which I did, thanks) and do all of that Photoshop magic I'm so very good at in order to get them into actual files to put on a disk to bring to the slide making place, I opted to go the "let them deal with scanning and fucking around with the settings" route. I am a lazy, lazy worker bee.
Right, so, I have to fill out a form to get permission to check it out so that my plan of passing the buck to the slide makers could succeed. Paperwork, they check my ID (to make sure I wasn't going to abscond with their only copy of the thrilling European Journal of Immunology, perhaps? They'd be able to track me down through my social security number and...then...they'd...uh. I don't know. The point is, who the hell, in their right minds, other than a doctor or a researcher would want to steal and covet a copy of the European Journal of Immunology? If I liked it that, that much, I'd definitely buy a subscription as a gift for myself. Don't I deserve it?), he hands it over and intones "It's due back on Friday".
Now, I know for a fact that I will not get the journal back on Friday, simply because that is when the slide making people told me they'd be able to have the slides finished. Ergo, I can not have a journal in two places at the same time, despite my apparent magical-ness. I decide that this is a risk I'm willing to take, because I'm an internationally known badass, and mosey off, journal in hand.
Come Monday, I collect it and the slides, and I go to the library to return the now 3 day late journal. There is no one there at the circulation desk to assist me, not a soul at the counter, so I revel in my good fortune (the people who work in this particular library are the kind of people who when you're trying to summons up a mental picture of someone who works in a dark, old, smelly medical library, because they WANT to and because they LIKE it. Think hairy, fat, smelly guy picking at his pimples and fondling books. Think angry black midget lady with the gigantic hydrocephalous head. Think skinny myopic girl with buck teeth. It's awful. If you are a person who has any of the above described characteristics, get thee to a medical library. You're missing your calling! Your people need you!) and just drop it off and go.
The next day, I get the email:
* THE FOLLOWING ITEM(S) ARE OVERDUE:
MEDICAL, Reserve 3 9092 015 524 273med journals
MEDICAL JOURNALS
FIRST NOTICE
DUE DATE: 05/19/2001 11:59 PM
FINE IS $0.50/DAY FROM DUE DATE
I reply:
At 10:12 AM 5/22/01 -0400, you wrote:
>I returned this journal yesterday. No one mentioned a fine. Please advise.
You, Gentle Reader, will notice that I didn't say "There was no one at the desk, so instead of trying to get one of your freakshow employees to pay attention to me, I threw it and ran". I didn't. I didn't!!
In any case, when we went to California, I decided that checking my email wasn't something I had a burning need to do, but the day I was sitting in front of a computer, trying to find the picture of the Dude Who Lives in My Car so that I could bring it to the tattoo place, I decided to check my work mail, though normally that's just begging for trouble. It's always all "Dana: The moment you return, there are 500 things you need to do, each of them equally important. I hope you didn't have any plans from now until the end of the summer. No more vacation days for you!" and I wind up getting pissed off. Not this time, though! This time, there was:
Hi Dana,
Your account was taking care . You do not have no fine.
Thank You for using our service.
Ana Quinones
Okay. Okay. And no, I didn't change it. That's exactly the mail I got. This is the mail that someone who works in the medical library of a prestigious university sends out. It took me almost a full year to get a job in New Haven. One Full Year. One. Full. Year. Take a look at that email again. If she gets paid more than me, I might just kill myself.
yesterday | email | home | tomorrow
uncle bill will never leave a will
and the tumor is as big as an egg
has a mistress, she's Puerto Rican
and I heard she has a wooden leguncle phil can't live without his pills
he has emphysema and he's almost blind
and we must find out where the money is
get it now before he loses his minduncle vernon, uncle vernon
independent as a hog on ice
he's a big-shot down there at the slaughterhouse
he plays accordion for mr. weiss