We like to call the place where we work “The Bad Place”.
There’s a desk shortage in our lab so we, the newbies, have found ourselves shunted into a room already occupied by people associated with another (and, I should add, incompatible) discipline. Our desks occupy a table in the centre of the room; their desks ring ours. Some helpful spatial analogies are:
They are the paying customers. We are the monkeys in the zoo.
They are the Allied forces in May 1945. We are Berlin.
They are the audience at the Coliseum. We are the gladiators.
They are the creationists. We are the evolutionary biologists. Sounds ok, right? But wait: this room is the Kansas Board of Education.
Now that you’ve gained a rough geographical (and tactical) understanding of our position in the room, I can explain this special kind of sadness.
Recently we noted that some of the people surrounding us have, sitting above their desks, something labeled the “Box of Happiness”.
This simple grey box is too high up to see into, so, in our fevered imprisonment, we imagine what it could be:
• Candy
• A pile of soft, soft hamsters
• Unspecified ideological complexes
• A pristine copy of my dissertation, transported from the post-apocalyptic future
• Unicorn blood, in silver vials
• A working global economy
• Etc.
Thus, in our all-consuming envy, we have developed:
Gelukdoostezza
Box of Happiness Sadness
Gelukdoostezza
Box of Happiness Sadness
