I made it.

Well, I made it through my seven days of purgatory. And no one is dead. (At least not by my hands anyway.) You all know how I handled the students on Monday, and Tuesday they weren't a whole heck of a lot better. The first few minutes they were there they kept bringing me their culture plates and asking me if they were positive.

This is how the conversation went:

Me: "What do you mean? Are they positive for what?"

Students: "Are they positive for bacteria?"

Me: "Does it look like any bacteria is on the plate?"

Students: "I think so.?"

Me: (in the most irritated of all voices) "You mean to tell me that you cannot look at that plate and tell the difference between bacteria and no growth at all? A freaking kindergarten student could look at that plate and tell the difference between no growth and bacteria."

Students: "Well maybe there is some growth on it."

Me: "Well if you cannot tell for sure, then maybe you should gram stain it. As a matter of fact, you just need to gram stain all of your plates."

And off they went with their lab coat tails between their legs to gram stain ALL of their plates.

After that they were afraid to even ask me a question. I saw them sheepishly looking in my direction a time or two and so after I had cooled off a bit, I asked them if they had any questions.

"Yes" So I answered the questions they had and sent them on their way.

Wednesday. Only one student showed up, and he was a lot easier to deal with. He must have gone home and studied the night before, because he seemed to be able to function without much supervision.

Thursday (today): Today started out strangely enough. I pulled into my parking space at work and before I could roll my window up and turn off my truck, I had some crazy lady at my window. She told me a very unbelievable story about just getting released from the hospital and not having a ride home until tomorrow and so they had sent her to the Salvation Army, but they don't accept people until 4:30pm . And she was hungry and starting to feel weak and didn't have any money. I noticed a hospital armband on her wrist and was trying very hard to see if she was from the phyciatric ward of our hospital or if she was a patient of the State Mental Hospital from across the street. I was only able to make out her last name. I went ahead and gave her four dollars(I figured it would at least get her some breakfast or a cheap bottle of wine and it got her away from my truck). Then I got out and started to the building and stopped a couple of campus police officers and gave them the story. They took my description of the lady and my name and told me they would keep an eye out for her. And then they stood there and scanned the parking lot, presumably looking for her. (I'm not quite sure.) Anyway, I went on into work. The day was pretty normal. The Students came in and were able to finish their unknowns and they actually got all the right answers!!! So I told them I would see them next week. On my way home I got stuck in traffic. There was a terrible head on collision with a car fire on one of the access roads and it had traffic at a stand still. What normally takes me 35 minutes, too an hour and 20 minutes. But I am home, I am safe, and I am here trying to get caught up. Soon, I will be asleep and I am not getting up before 9 am in the morning.

Thanks for reading this to the end, those of you that have. I have a tendency to ramble when I'm tired, so SORRY!!