cussin', cryin' and carryin' on

originally posted May 30, 2007

Every once in a while, a person just has to scream obscenities into a pillow. Some might instead choose to write an angry letter that is never to be sent. Because I am a person who is impulsive, irrational, and foolheaded, I've chosen to combine these two potentially cathartic, non-bridge-burning approaches into one big clusterfuck of frustration that is bound to bite me in the ass in one way or another. Stand back…


Dear Federally-Funded Grant Group,

Thank you for telling BS that your meeting is to be held every Wednesday. I've set my RA schedule around this. You see, one of the things I get paid to do as a research assistant is to be available at particular hours to answer questions related to statistical analytic procedures and stuff. Because, you know, no one has ever written any of this stuff down in a book, so I need to be there to say it to those who happen by. Thank you for deciding to hold your meeting this week on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. I enjoy re-arranging my schedule around you and your federally funded whims. It's not like I'm entering my SEVENTH year of graduate school – two years beyond which students are typically funded without raised eyebrows. I certainly don't need to seem dependable or anything. And thank you for not bothering to tell BS that you decided to go back to the Wednesday meeting time after all. I enjoyed receiving a phone call yesterday from Dr. C, seven minutes before the scheduled start of said meeting, mentioning that there was in fact NO MEETING ON TUESDAY because everyone sort of changed their mind. It sure was fun phoning the BS as he sat all alone in the conference room, wondering why the fuck no one was there. Getting the boy up mid-nap to retrieve BS kicked ass, too. It was especially convenient that this occurred no more than five minutes after we arrived home after swapping the car and leaving BS at school. And then I thoroughly enjoyed re-arranging my schedule A SECOND TIME IN ONE WEEK to accommodate the shift-from-Wednesday-to-Tuesday-back-to-Wednesday meeting. Again – there's no need for me to appear even vaguely dependable. None! And I found the joking email exchanges between you and BS about how I was all cranky about this scheduling gaff and how he was going to have to sleep on the couch over this one and HA HA HA really funny! Oh, and by the way, I wholeheartedly enjoyed entertaining two children on the campus of Ass Suck University for two hours today while BS was at your fun circle jerk, I mean meeting, so that I might have time to squeeze in a smidgen of work in the morning, but not piss away the afternoon driving home, then driving back, and fucking with the boy's naptime and such. Really. CHRIST ON A MOTHERFUCKING CRUTCH! THANKS! I'M REALLY GLAD YOU'RE SO CONSCIENTIOUS ABOUT THE FACT THAT I HAVE A JOB I'D LIKE TO KEEP! FUCK!

Go directly to hell,

Qwanty, M.A.
Graduate Student in Tomfuckery
Ass Suck University

***

Dear BS,

Thanks for coming to my office after your meeting today but not bothering to knock on my door because you assumed the closed door meant that I wasn't there, and was instead merrily tooling about campus with two happy children. You know how the three of us adore the heat, especially when it's in the triple digits. Thanks for not considering the fact that the door might be closed as a means of concealing the fact that a child was within, shrieking at regular intervals. Do you know what the people I work with love? Screaming toddlers! It's one of the reasons they've hired me – because I can be counted on to provide them with shrieking toddler background sounds. I've been told that it really facilitates their work, hearing a small boy cry No I WON'T! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! every time I request he stop waving a pointy pencil in the vicinity of his eyes. The also adore the absurdly loud SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH his sister can generate in response to his defiant moo. They've commended me on the robustness of her shushing abilities, and hope I can drag out my PhD just a bit longer so that they might have ample future opportunities to be sustained through their long workdays with the sound of SHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! coming from my office. I've also heard they're thrilled with their decision to position my office right by the front desk, so that I might share the sounds of my loins with the whole mother fucking place. And when I finally located you from my position way up on the third floor where your meeting had been, but had clearly ended some time earlier, as suggested by the darkened room with no one nearby – do you remember this? You were all the way on the ground floor chatting it up with Dr. C, totally oblivious to the fact that I was about to have a nervous breakdown due to all the shrieking and shushing? And I had to call down to you from the third floor while trying to contain my imminent implosion? Thanks for coming up to meet me and being all pissed off that Drs. C and K and N noted that I seemed cross. That really helped, YOU GODDAMN NO DOOR KNOCKING, CAN'T EFFECTIVELY COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR COLLEAGUES BS BS! I CAN'T WAIT TO TENDERLY CARESS YOUR ASS WITH MY FOOT IN A THRUSTING, POINTY-TOED FASHION!

Be seeing you,

Q

***

Dear Local Newspapers,

Thank you, the both of you, for running a lovely story about the study that Dr. BS and I and two others are doing with the local fire department. Did you know that I put Dr. BS in touch with the fire department when they were seeking someone to do a study on the impact of high call volumes because I have a grasp of what these people needed? Do you understand that I am acting as a methodology person on this project, and am faced with the analysis of a great deal of data with a rather complicated structure? You should, because Dr. BS told you this and asked that everyone on this project be included in this story because even Dr. BS understands that no BS works alone. Sadly, no one else knows, because you MADE NO MENTION OF ANY OF THIS WHATSOEVER, YOU KNOW, HOW THERE ARE OTHER PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THIS AND PISS FUCK SHIT. I'm not in this for any kind of publicity, but it sort of would have been nice to be acknowledged in some tiny way. Maybe you could have fit this in within some of the space you devoted to the three separate pictures you printed of BS looking studiously at firefighting stuff? Like the one where my daughter remarked Look! It's a picture of BS touching his tiny beard! I understand that the public needs to see this sort of thing, to understand that this man IS A MOTHERFUCKING SCIENTIST AND ALL WHO TOUCHES HIS TINY BEARD WHEN DEEP IN THOUGHT, but seriously, we're doing this for free and at this point in my academic career I really need a clipping from The Satan's Nethers Tribune to hang over my desk featuring my name to remind me that there is a point to all this. GODDAMN IT! GODDAMN IT TO HELL! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

A concerned reader,

Ms. Q. Wanty

***

Dear Birthday,

Thank you for coming in two days. I look forward to the way this will finally allow my friend Matt to remind me regularly that I'M OLDER THAN JESUS! THIS WILL BE GREAT FUN!NOW FUCK OFF!

love,

Me

***

Phew. I needed that! And now I need a hug.