Thursday, February 02, 2006

Reasons I Miss Working with Professor The Doktah

Number 1: The Backscratcher

The Doktah had a pink backscratcher. It was the sort of thing that you might win with 25 skee ball tickets. The Doktah may, in fact, have won it with 25 skee ball tickets. At any rate, she kept it hanging from the shelf above my desk in the lab. The backscratcher was awesome for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, it scratched a mean back. There’s nothing like a backscratcher for when you have an itchy spot you can’t reach. But – and this is where I explain why I miss working with The Doktah – the best part about the backscratcher was that it was shaped like a hand. A tiny pink hand. So if a person wanted to, say, demonstrate that she was thinking about something, that person could look up thoughtfully and say, “Hmmmm,” while scratching her chin with the tiny pink hand. Or, if a person wanted to make a good first impression on a visiting post doc, she could slide the backscratcher up her sleeve and offer the post doc the tiny pink hand to shake.

Yes, I miss working with The Doktah.

1 comment:

Banalities said...

Or, if you were wanted to be called on in class, you could raise your hand. Or, if some one asked for help, you could give them a hand. And if someone asked, you could pretend a seal ate your real one. Or, if you wanted to surrender to the police, you could put all three of them up. Or, if you were an old peasant couple who wanted to bring your dead son back, you could wish on it. And then when you see the slow, unnatural figure making its way through the storm down the dark country road to your house, and it's getting closer and closer and closer, and you finally understand about mortality and the permanence of death, and before it can come in, you could wish it away again.