“Dispatch, from 81.”
“Go ahead, C.”
“Um…just checking to see if we were on the right channel. Er…thanks.” WOOOOOOP!! (Police Car Siren) “Hennessy!”
“Sorry!”
“What did you push?!”
“I don’t know!”
-C., Dispatch, and Hennessy
So, Hennessy and I got to play with the radio and sirens again today. As you can see from the above quote, it went over very well.
This deserved a double.
See, about three weeks ago, Lt. Citrus came to me and told me, “In a couple of weeks I’m going to give you an assignment to get some jackets done up for security at the games. New patches and such, I’ll let you know more about it later.”
And after that? Silence until last friday when he stomped up to my desk and barked, “Have you done anything with that project I gave you? I need those jackets done right now, what have you done?”
“You didn’t give me the go-ahead, or tell me exactly what you needed,” I said, confused.
“Yes I did!” he snapped. “This patch with this logo across the back. Fix it!”
So Hennessy and I drove to (and through!) the stadium to pick up over one hundred jackets, get them sorted out, and today had to go pick them up so they could be used in upcoming football games. With a variety of police equipment technical…incidents…along the way.
I believe the order was for...strapping? (Editor's Note: none of our officers even remotely resemble this guy)
However, we got to use the radio for some fun, which made it all better. Pulling up to the station, I called Dispatch again (in a much more composed manner).
“Dispatch from 81.”
“Go ahead.”
“We’ve got a rather large order here. Can you dispatch some strapping men to us for heavy lifting and slave labor? Over.”
Two minutes later, five or six chuckling officers put in an appearance, a couple of them flexing.
It made my day. Or it could be that I’m getting out early on a friday…yeah…that could be it too…
(Transcript of actual conversation that took place over the phone, ten minutes after we were done with Angry Law Student)
Please oh please let me come!
Caller: Hi this is ______, and I have a question for you. C: How can I help you?
Caller: I’m wondering what it would take to get a parking permit for a horse on campus. C: …I’m going to need a bit of background info on that question, sir… Caller: Well, we’re trying to recruit this guy for the swim team and he loves his horses. So I jokingly told him we could get him a parking permit so he could ride his horse to school, and he really seemed interested. So, can I get him a permit or what do I need to do? C: …Sir, you can’t park a horse anywhere. It’s a living animal. Caller: Can’t he just tie to a bikerack or something? All we need is the permit. C: Sir, I can’t issue you a motor vehicle permit for a horse! Caller: Oh really! I want you to check with your supervisor, right now! C: Yes, sir.
(Puts caller on hold and calls Lt. Figaro. Meanwhile Hennessy and Officer Lampost are cracking up just hearing my end of the conversation)
C: Figaro, I have a gentleman on the phone who would like to park a horse on campus. Figaro: I beg your pardon? C: Just what I said. Please tell me the answer is no, so I can relay the message.
Figaro: Of course it’s no! We don’t have the place for it…who would clean up after it! C: I’m glad that’s our priority here, but I’ll let him know.
"The 'neighs' have it?" Oh come now, C, you're not going to pull that pun, are you?
C: Sir, I spoke with the lieutenant, and the answer is most definitely no.
Caller: But why not?! C: Because we don’t have an equestrian program here, which means we don’t have the facilities, equipment, tack, food, or pasturing for it.
Caller: Not even to a bikerack? C: Tying it to a bikerack for hours at a time in the desert summer or the winter blizzards is not an option, sir.
Caller: But I’ve seen horses on campus before! C: We bring a single pony onto campus one day a year for a demonstration in equine therapy for the physical therapy students, and you may have seen police on horseback for holiday parades or football games, but that isn’t with our department. We don’t have an equestrian police force.
Caller: So what am I supposed to tell our recruit? C: I have no idea, sir.
Caller: No horse? C: Absolutely no horse, sir. Caller: Humph! Well thanks for nothing.
A law student came into the office today, demanding more parking for graduate students. With the new parking system, still not completely patched and just limping along, lots of students have been taking advantage of the absence of usual oversight by parking wherever they want: handicapped stalls, dean and administrator lots, etc. Which means that when (and if) this new system starts functioning properly, a whole lot of people are in for a nasty surprise. I forsee the university setting up a new scholarship fund out of the proceeds, but I digress.
We apologized for the inconvenience and said it should be corrected in a month, but that did no good. As Lt. Figaro explained the policy regarding each of her complaints, she kept changing her argument and problem until she was eventually asking for us to build new parking, or take parking away from other people to give to graduate students.
“We already have about one parking space per three grad students and special lots for you,” Figaro said, wearily, “as opposed to one in five for the rest of our students.”
“But we need more!”
“Ma’am,” I said, “we have thousands of students currently attending, plus several thousand more faculty, staff, administrative, service personnel, and contractors who come to this school everyday. Plus there is another university in the next city over. This area was never meant to accomodate nearly XXX thousand extra people, city planning hasn’t kept up with it in the past two generations. You’re asking us for space that we cannot give you, because it literally does not exist.”
“But I spent forty-five minutes circling that parking lot to find a space yesterday!”
“Well,” offered Figaro, “did you try parking at the basketball arena or football stadium and walking?”
She gasped in outrage, “All that way?!”
“I have never let schooling interfere with my education.”
-Mark Twain
Realizing that I’m about to brand myself a hopeless nerd, I have to admit I am horribly jealous that J. gets to go back to school this fall. This is really the first autumn in nearly twenty years that I’m not going to be in school (I don’t count last year’s because I was still whirling from the dizzying feeling of freedom) and it’s a little odd to realize how sad I am over the thought.
I really loved school, especially university where I got to immerse myself in a topic for months at the time and come out feeling like I really did know something about the subject. I got to study things I genuinely loved and had an interest in, so major projects and papers were seldom a chore (unless I procrastinated horribly).
And believe it or not, I’m wretched over the idea of not buying armloads of books this fall! Maybe those of you who currently attend my Alma Mater are stretching your eyes incredulously over such a lapse in financial judgement, but unlike lots of my friends I seldom had to eat Ramen for a month in order to pay for my books. The majority of my classes relied on novels, primary sources, history books, anthologies of writings from every conceivable century, essays, etc. and I absolutely refused to sell most of them back to the campus bookstore (except for one semester when I was well and truly starving and had to sell back a book on classical Greek civilization from the earliest city-states through the Persian Wars. I nearly cried, and when I saw how little I was going to get back for it – compared to what I’d originally paid – I nearly abandoned the plan…but I needed food).
I was talking to MyFavorite a while back and when he asked me what it’s like working full time instead of being in school, I told him all of the above. We also discussed the oddness of being in charge of one’s own continuing education. Lots of people seem to finish school and never tax their brain again, I live in fear of mine starting to atrophy! I swear the process has already started! It takes effort to get home from work, cook, clean, manage bills, make future plans, and still pull out a book instead of turn on the TV. Instead of someone else teaching me, I’m entirely responsible for what goes into my head from here on out.
Frost wasn't entirely correct, it's more like "Two million roads diverging-" at times.
In that same vein, it’s not just the stimulation I miss about school, it’s also the framework university sort of set up for life. Each semester had a distinct beginning, middle, and end so you always felt as if you were actively moving through life instead of just being pushed along by the current. Now, instead of this handy, cyclical way to make a year pass, post-graduate life by comparison seems like one long line stretching off into the distance.
That seems depressing…I don’t mean it to be, but it’s the best metaphor I can find. What I mean to say is that instead of having an Outside Force set up my life’s structure and passage of time, I’m now the only person who can do that. If there are to be any interesting breaks, sideshows, or detours in that long line, I’m the person who must take the prerogative of creating/finding/following them. And while the adventure of doing so is almost always fantastic, sometimes I do miss having that Outside Force doing it for me because I feel (looking back) that being ignorant of that Force meant I could simply live life and enjoy the ride. It’s no simple thing to be almost entirely in charge of your own destiny!
Small Dog Syndrome 