Wednesday night, it was Miller Time. I had received my shipment of PMMA rods (heh heh, “rods”) a couple days before and, unlike the wildly expensive and six-months-delayed pieces of titanium crap my research sponsors provided, they were straight, round, and consistently within a couple thousandths of the target 1″ diameter. I may not write the dissertation I had intended to write six months ago, but gawldammit I was going to graduate with something.

If it is my research sponsor’s job not to give me testable specimens, it is my lab technician’s job to tell me what else is not possible. Manually drilling (heh heh, “drilling”) a single hole through the center of the rod small enough not to affect the initial crack at a thirty degree angle off normal, this is not possible. Until I went into the machine shop on Wednesday night and cajoled our crappy multi-function milling machine into doing exactly that. And there was much Miller Beer enjoyed. Not in the machine shop, though. That is not possible.

Yesterday I triumphantly went in to show the boss the fruits (heh heh, “fruits” — no, wait. damn. nevermind.) of my labor. After admiring my workmanship and saying positive things, he began with the obligatory joke-making, some at my expense, some just near it, and some just goofy things one might do with six-inch long pieces of clear acrylic rod with a hole in ‘em. As I put them in my back pocket and tried to leave, he was inspired with one more such suggestion: “Or you could just carry one around in your front pocket and really impress the girls at the Vortex, ha ha.”

Ell. Oh. Ell.

Without even thinking, I quipped back, “Oh come on, I’d need to get thicker rod than that to make it worthwhile.”

And there it was. We were now talking penis in the boss’s office. My penis, no less. I averted my eyes and backed out of the office as quickly and quietly as possible.

And then I set fire to the building the end.



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