Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It's Off To Work I Go!

The Office/Lab/Place where I spend 2o hours each week is acting very strange today. First, there's the fact that it's a Monday and yet, I'm the only one here today. I knew, coming in, that this would happen because my co-worker is out of town, so I was prepared for it, but the reality of sitting here all alone in a windowless room for 5 hours while imagining all the crazed axe-murderers who might come crashing through the wall at any moment is still rather disconcerting. Plus, with no one else here, I have no excuse to lolly-gag, so I actually have to be *gasp!* productive and do work. Which means that today has been a very good day, work-wise. But much of the past week was also good, work-wise, which means that even though I WANT to do things today, there's actually not a whole lot left to do.

Plus, when I came in this morning, I found hay lying on the carpet. Which wouldn't be all that strange if I worked in, say, a horse barn. But considering that I, in fact, work in a regular university building that is far away from all the agriculture and veterinary sciences buildings, I'm not entirely sure why there's hay on my floor. On the plus side, it did give me something to do as I first attempted to pick up all the hay and put it in the trash can, and then realizing that gathering up all the little hay pieces was damn near impossible, I decided it would be a much better use of time to write a note to hang on the door requesting that the room be vacuumed tonight. We'll see how that goes. Hopefully, it'll also pick up the goldfish cracker crumbs that have been ground into the carpet for about two months now.

And finally, there's the very strange alarm system that is currently being tested. It's not a fire alarm, because the fire alarm is loud and actually ALARMING. This is the In Case Of Otherwise Unclassified Emergency Alarm. I'm hoping that if there was an actual emergency, they'd describe the emergency instead of just saying "This alarm is to notify you of an Otherwise Unclassified Emergency." But presumably, this is the alarm you'd hear in case of a gas leak or the start of a nuclear war or the appearance of the aforementioned crazed axe murderers. Unfortunately, (a) you can't hear it in most of the offices or classrooms and (b) it's very...soothing. Kinda like a lullaby. So even in those rooms where it CAN be heard, people tend to listen to the lovely cadence of the announcement, but no one ever pays attention to what the announcer is actually saying. So the purpose of the alarm is somewhat defeated. And yet, on the first weekday of every month, they test the system for about 2 hours, right after lunch. And this is what is commonly known around here as NAP TIME.