Wednesday, March 6, 2013

pine cone all up in my eyeball.


Alright, hooligans. This is the post you've all been waiting for.  Which is actually a bummer because sometimes I am the worst at telling stories so it's entirely possible that I got you all worked up for nothing.  But, whatevs. Let's do this.

So, on Monday morning I woke up at 6 (okay, 6:10) and got ready for work at 7:30 just like I do every day.  And just like every other day, my first thought when I got out of bed was, "I can't wait until I get home so I can take a nap."  It's weird because I say that seriously every day and then I very rarely take naps.  I should write a post about my nap-taking strategies sometime.  Or maybe not.  ANYWAY.  So I'm getting ready and as usually time flies and suddenly it is two minutes past the time I try to leave by--there's a whole strategy about getting out the door at the exact right time so that I can walk at a normal pace up the hill to work and get there at exactly 7:30.  Over the past three years I've seriously perfected it and can alter my speed depending on what time I leave. I impress even myself with my ability to do this. Ooh!  I should also write a post about the guy I walk past every morning!  Or maybe not. Oh my gosh, ANYWAY.

So it's two minutes after I'm supposed to leave so I'm running around and I grab my backpack and some fruit snacks (a very healthy choice) and I head out the door.  And seriously, as I'm walking across the living room to the door, I suddenly realize that I had a PINE CONE in my eye.  Okay, not a pinecone, but something.  You know how it is--you get something in your eye and so you have to like stick your finger in there and try to wipe it out and 99% of the time it's mascara, which is kind of a bummer for me because I'm that girl that loves mascara times one million.  Anyway, I took .3 seconds to look at it in the mirror on my way out the door but I couldn't see anything. So I just ran out the door and sped up to work.  I'm sure everyone that passed me thought I was on crazy pills because my eye was blinking like cray cray and watering and I kept sticking my finger in it to see if I could wipe out whatever crap was in there but TO NO AVAIL. So I walked into work (I'm a secretary in the chemistry department on campus) and my eye is watering and it freaking hurts, yo. Every time I blinked I was like, "I hate my life, I hate my life, I hate my life." I tried looking in a mirror in the bathroom real quick style, but I couldn't find anything so I basically resigned myself to eventual blindness as a result of the monster in my eye.

So a few minutes later, Dr. M walks in and was asking me to make some copies for him and then we were talking about the little google doodly image thing (you know, like Happy Birthday, Abraham Lincoln! on the google.com page or whatever). So we're just chatting about stuff and it was all fine and stuff, but after a little while I was like, "I'm sorry, but there is a pine cone in my eye right now and I can't get it out and it really hurts."  (Yes, I actually said there was a pine cone in my eye. Whyyyy???) He was like, "A pine cone?" and I was like, "Well, no not really.  It's probably an eyelash covered in a pound of mascara (the exaggerating continues...) but I can't see it and I don't know how to get it out."  So he was like, "Here, let me see if I can help you."

And so he proceeded to have me stand up and he had me pull my eyelid around and he tried to see if he could find it.  But again, nothing was to be found.  So I was like, "I guess it'll come out eventually."

Then a student came in and needed a laser pointer, so I tested one out and handed it to him and Dr. M. was like, "You know, when those are working with full batteries, they can damage someone's eyes from up to 1500 feet away."  Good to know.  Also, you're probs wondering why I mentioned this bit about the laser pointer, but don't worry, it comes in later.

After laser pointer kid left, Dr. M. was like, "Well if you want, we can get the eye wash out and then for sure it will be gone."

Side note: Do you guys know what an eye wash station is?  It's something that is found in labs (remember, I work with chemists) so if you accidentally get some cray cray chemical in yo eye, then you go to the eye wash station and it sprays into your eye from a variety of different angles. Seriously, google "eye wash station" and be amazed.

Anyway, that was nice of him to offer the eye wash but he knew I wouldn't take him up on the offer since "you seem to have some makeup on your eyes".  So, no on the eye wash, but while we were standing there talking about my eye, Dr. G. came in and was slightly confused by the fact that Dr. M. was staring into my eyes trying to find a pine cone.  Anyway, Dr. G. needed me to do something for him, but he was also pretty concerned about the pine cone so he told me I couldn't do anything until I got that taken care of.

So then they both left and I took care of a few things and then the pine cone was driving me cray to the cray cray so I headed to the bathroom to see if I could see anything.  Dr. M. had suggested I pull on my eyelashes and have my top eyelid slide over my bottom eyelid as a way of rubbing the mascara-laden eyelash off of the inside of my eyelid if that was where it was.  But I didn't want to be pulling at my eyelashes (all in the name of beauty!) so I was thinking maybe I could just pull on my eyelid instead of my eyelashes and maybs it would do the trick?

I was thinking about this as I walked toward the bathroom when all of a sudden I heard, "Stacy."  Since I was in my own world, that made me jump as I turned to see Dr. M. walking toward me. As I looked up at him, I saw that he was holding a laser pointer that was on and he was waving it in my direction and since I had just learned about how my eyes could be melted by those things, that made me jump again and cover my eyes, and shout out, "What the?!"  He was like, "Holy cow, are you okay?! I didn't realize I would scare you that bad! I was just bringing you this flashlight to help you to see into your eyelid better."  I then explained to him that I thought he was going to murder me with that flashlight because I thought it was a laser pointer and that I'm just easily scared in general plus I still had a pine cone in my eye, so basically I was just having a really confusing morning. Ha.

So I took the flashlight into the bathroom, did the whole pull-the-eyelid-out-and-scrape thing and somehow it worked!  The chunky mascara lash was out!  I was saved!  I was free to make copies and write emails and help people and do all other secretary needs free of a pine cone in my eye!  It was glorious! It was amazing!

I know you're probs like, that was a super one million long story and it really wasn't even that exciting and I understand that.  The reason I wrote this and the reason I love it is because of those professors.  They are seriously just my favorite people.  And they're not just professors to me; they're my friends.  Just like Sue, my boss, is my friend (there's no other way I would run a 5k with her in a few weeks if we weren't friends).  I mean, that whole department just makes me so happy.  I'm friends with 30+ professors who have Ph.D.'s and are all super geniuses and yet they still think I'm pretty neat and that let me joke with them and they let me be myself and they help me get pine cones out of my eyes and I just love them.  It's seriously the greatest place, I'm not even kidding.  There is no other place I know of where as many corny jokes are told or where professors do chemistry raps for their student while wearing their "gangsta" clothes (which includes a backwards Harvard hat--probs my favorite part of that outfit...so gangsta. Dr. W "Yeah, I wrote the redox rap and then I had someone edit it for me." Me: "Oh yeah, they had to take out all the bad words, didn't they?").

And then of course they're chemists so they can be a little geeky and they love to share interesting chemistry fun facts with me even though I won't get 90% of them.  They're super appreciative of the work I do for them and a lot of them take interest in my personal life and I love it.  Both professors and staff compliment me on my outfits regularly so it's pretty great place to boost my self-esteem (I especially like when some of the slightly older professors compliment me on my "blouse".  Idk why, but that word just sounds funny to me).  Then there are a few grumpier professors who might look intimidating to some, but to me I just think they're fabulous and they're so great and it just breaks my heart into a million pieces thinking about how I only have two more months of working there before I graduate.  I'm not even kidding, that's probably on my list of top two reasons why I wish I didn't have to graduate (Idk what else would be on that list, but I just thought I'd say top two reasons to be safe in case I come up with something better...which I doubt I will.)

Chemists are basically the greatest.  I'm not even kidding, I would go on a date with any guy who had taken at least one chemistry class at BYU--mostly because chemistry is so awesome but also partly because then we could talk about their professor...I am so weird.

So I guess what I'm saying is that it's nice to be valued and appreciated and treated like an equal in a job where yeah, 90% of the people are far more educated than I am and have done more with their lives than I have.  It's nice not to just be "the secretary", but to be "Stacy, the awesome secretary that we can't let graduate because then she will have to leave."  It just feels good.

p.s. after the whole pine cone incident, Dr. G. came back and was like, "I didn't realize you actually wore makeup."  I know he meant that to be a compliment, but I was kind of like, for real?  Do you think I don't take care of myself? Oh well, I still think he's great.
p.p.s. that picture is of me, Sue, and one of the other student secretaries. We're going to run/walk a 5k!  What are we getting ourselves into?
p.p.p.s. If you want to run the 5k with us, it's the Rex Lee Run put on by a part of the Chem Dept and you can register at rexleerun.byu.edu. It's going to be great!

3 comments:

Janelle said...

Baby Carson and I are doing the rex lee run too! Maybe we will see you there among the other 5 jillion people.

Anonymous said...

A 5K? Holy cow, girl! Maybe I'll be at the finish line waving streamers and honking a horn. Or maybe Kenny and I will be doing the MC Hammer dance. We be gettin cray cray.

Jone said...

I HATE mascara-gobbed pinecones, I mean eyelashes in my eyes. Glad you worked it out. And it sounds like you have a fabbbity-fab-fab job.