Along with being a full time student and consuming my life with other activities, I have a job. I work at a Lab doing research on birds. Sometimes I get paid to stuff envelopes and stare at a computer screen, but one or two days a week I get paid to do fieldwork. This is the fun part. I lug a 10-gallon jug of sunflower seed, four 12-volt batteries, and a small laptop through a field and small forest so that I can fill up, change, and download the bird feeders my boss uses for research.
Now, normally this is the best job ever. Money is deposited into my checking account every time I scamper about in the woods. But occasionally my job sucks. Like this week, for example. Last Friday I went out to change feeders with my coworker Sarah (who often gets to experience and/or hear my stories firsthand). The high up here in the Northeast was ~15 degrees F. In the two minutes it took us to drive from the lab to where we park it started white-out blizzarding. Neither one of us generally wears goggles (though I wore my chem goggles once) so trying to drag 30 pounds of stuff through this blizzard on top of the knee-high snow that was already on the ground, while not really being able to see much was terrible. Just terrible.
By the time I make it to the first feeder I'm ready to kill something. But the icing on the cake comes when I actually open up the feeder to get at its guts. The wind is blowing so hard that all the snow on the tree limbs is blowing everywhere. Add this to the blizzard already happening and it's like being in a snowglobe. Have you ever tried to keep a small laptop and circuit board from being destroyed in a snowglobe? It's literally impossible. At this point, I'm ready to call Sarah and get the hell outta there. But then I think about how my boss would tease us about not being able to handle it and I steel myself for another three rounds of this mayhem.
Feeder 2. I clear some of the snow away from beneath the feeder so have somewhere to sit. Not all the snow mind you, just enough so I can see the tips of dead grass underneath. I kneel down in my snowpants and spend the next 10 minutes doing my thing. As I hang the feeder back on its hook my brain says "Wait a minute...there's never been grass under this feeder before." Being the inquisitive science major that I am, I kick the "dead grass" with my boot. I KNELT ON A FROZEN FUCKING POSSUM FOR 10 MINUTES. The following minutes consist of me freaking out by myself in the middle of a forest. There were lots of expletives and a fair amounts of "EWWWW!!"s. For a second there, in the swirling snow, I thought I saw the thing breathing. Jesus, I've fucking kneeled on and killed a possum. I'm a terrible human being. Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod. But no, upon closer examination it's definitely dead. I know enough about Didelphimorphs to know that if they get knelt on they will probably bite you. I don't think possums can play dead that well. Ya dig?
Eventually I calm down enough to kick the poor possum (frozen into the shape and consistency of a frisbee) over to the side. My brain is still in shock. I get the hell out of there.
When I tell Sarah this story, she collapses in laughter. "Wait 'till we tell Boss." Yeah, because I'm totally looking forward to that.
Part II
So that was last Friday. Yesterday (Tuesday) I was supposed to go and change feeders by myself. Now generally, Sarah and I drive together and park at a smaller lab and walk out to change feeders. But I only had to do one forest yesterday and there's a dirt road that goes out to it. Now, I drive a Honda Civic (her name is Penelope). Honda Civics do not have four-wheel drive. I know this. But I decide that I will drive by the dirt road and check it out. If it looks too snowy for Penelope, I'll drive to the other lab and walk the extra half mile. If it looks OK, I'm golden.
I drive by and the dirt road looks OK. There's still some snow but it looks as if several other people have driven there previously and done just fine. So I give Penelope a quick pep talk and turn onto the road. About 40 feet in Penelope gets stuck. Well shit. Being from the great old state of Maryland, the emergency stash in my car includes jumper cables, an emergency survival kit, and an ice scraper. I go for option C and decide that I can dig myself out with a moderately sized ice scraper enough so that I can at least back out and park at the other lab. Another incentive for this crazy plan is so I can tell my boss that I MacGyver-ed my way out of this particular mess. He uses "MacGyver-ed" all the time. And though I've never seen an episode of that show ever, I understand that it means something like using stuffs you have on you for nowhere near their original purposes. Usually blowing shit up. MacGyvering myself out of this mess might redeem me a little for getting myself into it to begin with. I decide I will MacGyver myself out of this jam. It's only 2:15pm. Plenty of time.
2:20 - I start digging out the wheels
2:40 - Still digging. Why did there have to be a snowbank on Penelope's left flank?
3:10 - attempt 1 to back Penelope out fails. Return to digging
3:30 - attempt 2 also fails. MOAR DIGGING.
4:00 - attempt 3. Attempt to put dry grass under wheels for more friction. Nope. I've moved the car 6 feet towards the road. Time to call for backup.*
*Sidenote: I just want to say that I was extremely close to the road. Like 30-40 feet. My car is blue, I'm next to a snow-covered field, my hat is green with a giant pom-pom on top. I'm dressed in black snowpants with a pink tye-dye shit. I'm not blending in here. I've been on my knees attempting to dig out my car with a goddamn ice scraper for two hours next to a fairly busy road. I am obviously a damsel in distress. I have no idea how many cars passed me. At least a hundred. Some had snow plows on them. Not a single one of them stopped to see if I was OK or if I needed help. What the HELL is wrong with humanity? People suck.
After calling Sarah and explaining to her my dilemma (and suffering her laughter) she gives me the number to the Lab. I call for backup. Mary, the awesome front desk receptionist who occasionally drops F-bombs and gives me cookies, attempts to save me. She sends out an emergency email to the Lab asking if anyone is wiling to come save me. Apparently the answer is a big fat No. Mary calls back and tells me the shuttle driver will pick me up and we'll deal with my car when I get back to the lab. I get rescued and am back at the lab just before 5. I then have to call a towtruck service. I think the icing on the cake was that the lady at the towing service laughed at me when I told her that I "overestimated my car's ability to drive through snow". I mean yeah, it's funny, but I was in a terrible mood at this point. She tells me the guy will be there in 10 minutes to pick me up. I think I can handle 10 minutes outside so I go sit in the cold.
Nearly 40 minutes later, Towtruck Guy arrives. Everything between my knees and bellybutton is numb from sitting on a rock outside the Lab door. Ten minutes my ass. Towtruck Guy is extremely large and looks to have the brains of a squirrel. He drives me to my car. It takes nearly 30 minutes for TtG to clamp a chain onto Penelope and drag her out of that tundra pit. The entire time I was sitting in the cab of the towtruck being miserable. The alert lights are alight on top of the truck and it feels a bit like sitting in a police car. The people driving by (and now they notice me, of course) are totally judging me. I can tell.
Following Penelope's rescue, TtG gets back in the cab and grabs his paperwork. He slowly prattles on about "[some number] feet of chain" and other things that fly completely over my head. Except he says it in a way that sounds like I should totally comprehend what he's trying to tell me. Whatever. I'm too wiped from the stress to care. I do snap out of it a bit when I see the bill. Goddamn that was an expensive mistake. $135!! Jesus towtrucks are goddamn expensive. I use my credit card and leave.
When I got home I walked in yelling. I'm pretty sure I yelled some F bombs for no apparent reason other than to get all the stress out. My housemates, kind of freaked at seeing me go nuts (I don't normally yell), ask me what happened. I recount the story. Hair (her not real life name) made me go take a shower. Did I mention that I was covered in mud and smelled faintly of manure? I slipped getting into the shower and just hollered more expletives about how much I hated everything. In the shower. Then I got out and ate an entire box of pierogies. Then Chef (not his real life name either) made me some hot chocolate. I spiked it when his back was turned. That pretty much sums up my day.
P.S. Boss gets back from Florida tomorrow. He was absent for both the possum and the towtruck incident. Also, just seconds ago got a text from Sarah (who went in to the Lab today). It says "you are going to have so much fun the next time you come in. AM (our supervisor) started laughing the moment she saw me and apparently she and Boss have already "conversed"." I can't contain my excitement.
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