Rainy days and Mondays

Today is a very rainy Monday and the day of my last Orgo lab, the last lab of my pre-medical career.

I arrived on time, but just barely. I took out my pencil, pen and lab book and put on my lab coat before locking the rest of my belongings into my assigned lab locker.

Then I realized that instead of my lab book what I had was my lab manual. I went back to the locker and stared at my lock with a vague idea of what the combination was, very vague. Because it was written down in my lab book, I hadn't bothered to give up any valuable real estate in the memorizing crap part of my brain, things are pretty tight in there this year.

The combination included a 15 and a zero, and either 30 or 35. I tried several permutations of those three or four numbers, but success alluded me. There are at least 12 possibilities and it is possible that in my cold sweat I repeatedly tried the same three.

Lab is stressful enough: time constraint, grading for mixing chemicals, ugg, and without the book I would not be able to do the lab or turn in a lab report. It was bad news. I chose not to panic, but it was a hard choice. Panic was looking good. So were tears.

I walked into class and told the lady who runs it what happened. First, she thought I had lost my book and tried to give me an orphan edition. Then she pointed to the lock cutter, and said that they had it for a reason. She is a petite woman and the other lab tech is a tall water polo player. She told me that she had never used the bolt cutter before because he always did. But he wasn't around. It took a few attempts, and after the second, she told me that the cutter was heavier than she thought. Imagine a small woman holding a bolt cutter over her head. The lock kept slipping, but the cutter prevailed.

She was pretty happy with herself for cutting a lock. I was pretty happy to get my lab book.