Tropical Depression: Maggot the Underdone Muffin I kind-of-recently moved the snail lab into a new building...a building housing the School of Social Work, the Center for Biographical Research, and "Rainbow Advantage", a program designed to help our college athletes get passing grades. (Welcome area Non-Biologists) In order for my boss to agree to this move (he'd been housed in his old lab for 20+ years) he demanded that we get use of a connecting office. That meant we had to kick out someone from Rainbow Advantage. Ok, I didn't have to kick anyone out, that was all up to the mysterious powers of The Administration, but I had to move in, and with the former tenants watching, well, that was a damn good time. You know it.
After we were sort of settled in, with disasters down to about one per day, the head of the Rainbow program came by to check our deal. She was a large, imposing woman, with badly-managed hair, in physical structure resembling something like a walking sea cumber, or an underdone muffin. She introduced herself as "Mahhhgit". Huh?
While clearly not at all impressed with the goals of the lab or the concept of maintaining biodiversity ("So, what is the point of the snails?") she was openly hostile towards me about our occupation of the space, and she just seemed like one of those people who actively despises life. I did my best to be broadly apologetic; after all, it was not my decision to move. Hey, we were off to a great start!
So, later that week I flooded two of her offices when one of my sprinkler hoses burst on a Saturday night. Hello neighborhood! Let's be friends!!
Believe me, I heard (and continue to hear) about that one. She stops by about once a week to remind me. Anyway, at some point I realized that I couldn't remember her name. Margret? Minaret? I finally walked by her office one day (after hours because I didn't want to chance running into her) and took a good look at her name. Magit. What? Magit? (Really?) (Maggot?) Oh no. Now whenever I see her the mis-pronunciation of her name just screams in my head "HER NAME IS MAGGOT!!! OMG!!1!!LOL!!!" I can't help it. I know that she was probably ridiculed to near death growing up, and that it formed a part of her character and maybe she's really a lovely person. If she had been remotely pleasant I would be able to correctly pronounce her name. At least that's what I'm telling myself.
