ass kicking

We have a unicorn in my lab. And as everyone knows, unicorns kick ass. Wait, apparently not everyone knows that.

A and I got the unicorn a while ago from a toy store in a strip mall near campus. It's a unicorn on a stick, like the old fashioned, perplexing child's toy "horse on a stick" (seems it's called a "stick horse" because "horse stick" could sound bad).

Our unicorn stick has sound effects. This is what made A and I buy it. I mean, we were playing with it anyhow, giggling like idiots in the store. When we realized that pressing the unicorn's ear results in a few moments of galloping noises which end in a series of whinnies, we had to get it.

And so now we have a unicorn. We brought it to school because it is often a toxic place and having a unicorn to look at and play with sometimes is helpful. We have many nice happy memories of people on the unicorn either in celebration or for cheering up. Today, it was for cheering up. I've been trying to fight off a first class bad mood all week.

I went over to the box where the unicorn stands. Justin, named after the unicorn in the Scrubs episode since it seems that the makers of that show understand the usefulness of having a comfort unicorn one can go to when one needs to. I went over and took Justin for a short spin. The other grads cheered us on, happy for the unicorn moment. The undergrad, however, was not impressed.

This is the undergrad who sits at the desk my officemates and I had set aside for a fellow grad student. The fellow grad student had transfered to our advisor but doesn't personally use the space we went out of our way (way out of) to make for him in our advisor's lab because he doesn't want to offend his former advisor by leaving the one remaining student his former advisor has in a lab by herself. It's politics and it's about sparing the professor's "feelings" (this professor has the range of feelings of a very small child - "cranky" and "full") at the cost of the feelings of us, the grads who moved all this shit around because we were told "hey guys, ____ is coming to the lab so let's make some space for him!"

This is the undergrad who works for the politically absent fellow grad student, collecting his data for him, and so this is the undergrad who sits at the desk we set up for our fellow grad in our office, who ignores her subjects when they show up, ignores them in that sort of bored receptionist ignoring way. This is the undergrad who, when she finally does recognize their presence, advises the subjects she is running for our politically absent fellow grad student to throw their shit "where ever" in our office without regard for doorways, walkways, or other people's space in this small area. This is the undergrad who quite often seems to be very put upon by things like us wanting to use our lab space for data collection on a day when she usually runs for our politically absent fellow grad student, by our coming and going through our office, by our eating lunch in our office, and by our sometimes talking with each other or meeting with our students in our office.

In my book, everyone can be put upon for no apparent reason at all. It's life, it's hard, you feel like huffing and puffing sometimes. I understand, truly. But the frequency of this undergrad's put uponness over things being done by people who are much more graciously putting up with the not terribly convenient circumstance of her working from our office (at best an irksome reminder of her boss's choice to be absent) is far too high, even for me.

This is the undergrad who was annoyed that I was playing with my unicorn, in my office.

"Ummmm, why do you have a unicorn in your office?" she asked in those tones which say "I'm saying 'why do you have a unicorn' but really, what I mean is 'that is like so stupid, it's totally gay. My gohhd, if I were getting my PhD, I wouldn't waste my time riding a unicorn around an office that has rainbow cut outs on the walls (gay!). I'd wear glasses and put my hair in a bun and I'd look very smart while I squinted at computer screens and pressed a pencil to my lip nearly chewing it but not quite. My office key and flash drive would be on a color coordinated cord around my neck, and I might also carry a clipboard, at least when I am running subjects...which is so totally beneath me' Now please stop fooling around for 5 minutes. I know it's your office and you're sharing your space with me simply out of misguided respect and concern for your peer who I am doing data collection for, but I simply must get back to squinting over and highlighting every second line of my reading for my Dysfunctional Personalities Types class."

I haven't touched the unicorn all semester, hell, I think not since I finished my first time teaching as an instructor last semester. It's not like we're always fucking off in there. Usually it's largely headphones and laptops. But now, I'm thinking of riding that unicorn every day she's in there. It's my office. I can ride a unicorn in it if I want to.

Got unicorns?