Tardiness will not be tolerated.

The Romanian delegate has had enough. He is not content to sit and wait, becoming increasingly late for work, as the Caucasia-NCA delegate, and then bTexas take their sweet ass time getting to the proscribed meeting points. Today, he mutinied. When his (American-made) watch ticked past the time to leave, he left, passenger seats empty. First, he left the Caucasia-NCA delegate at his house, then bTexas at the Frozen Dairy Treat Franchise that is his designated meeting spot. The Romanian’s cell phone had died, so he couldn’t call to tell them he was leaving them, but no matter. They were late, and they had it coming.
When he arrived at the Restaurant for Truck Drivers and the Elderly that is the meeting place for the PRL and Vietnamese delegates, on time for the first time in months, he requested a phone call be made to the errant delegates. “We are waiting for the Romanian!” they claimed. “He is here!” the PRL delegate explained, “You were late!” If you have ever seen a cartoon where the character holds the phone away from their head, while various symbols that substitute for expletives stream out of the earpiece, then you have an idea of how bTexas reacted to this revelation.
Despite the Romanian’s protestations, the decision to wait for those slowpoke delegates was made, in the spirit of equanimity. Additionally, this allowed the Romanian delegate to harangue bTexas and Caucasia-NCA for several minutes on their rampant tardiness. Watches were synchronized, and the PRL delegate fell asleep in the back of the minivan, safe from the disgruntled glares of offended delegates on both sides of the issue.


As the minivan departed, carrying bTexas and the Romanian delegate to their end of the plant, the other 3 delegates stood in the mist and watched as it receded towards the nitrogen tank. “Oh crap,” muttered the Vietnamese delegate, “I forgot my drink in the cupholder.” Now his drink this afternoon will be 2 ounces of hot, watered down soda.

Obviously he knows something we don't

The Romanian delegate seems, by all rights, a reasonably intelligent person. He is an engineer, with a Master’s degree. It can’t always be said that engineers, particularly those with higher degrees, are completely sane, but it’s pretty much a given that they are smart. Maybe it has something to do with growing up in a communist country, where critical thinking is not highly prized, especially under a dictator like Nicolae Ceauşescu. It’s hard to tell. What is evident, however, is that the Romanian delegate seems to believe just about anything that anyone tells him (for instance, parsley).

He mentioned the other day something called “biorhythms,” which he said he uses to predict his energy level and general health on a daily basis. Thinking that this was something that would interest the local envoy, he sent a link, so she could see for herself the wonders of biorhythms. This link was dutifully forwarded to the PRL Delegate, who has no natural rhythm, and thus will take all the biorhythm she can get.

Using your birth date as the only data input, an obscure and undoubtedly devilishly complicated program produces a lovely set of color-coded sine waves, from which you apparently can determine whether or not it is safe to go to work (“If your waves, they are very high or very low, you should stay at home, in the bed, because you could have heart attack or stroke”). The PRL delegate was surprised to learn that while she felt rather average (if a bit tired) today, her sine waves were all peaking, and as such she should be “manic” and confined to bed, lest she give herself an aneurism if she so much as sneezed.

This was a distressing find, as this delegate had already committed to a strenuous interval of aerobic exercise during the lunch break, and to back out would have caused her to look like a pansy-pants. Frantically, she consulted the site’s other magical calculators, and was given a list of words that might be used to describe her day.

(if your parsley breakfast didn't give you super-vision, clicky for a large version)

Drama! Hell! Sacrifice! Exhaustion! Slaughter! Syzygy! Even the words were against her today!

What about the runes? Maybe the runes could give her some good news!

(Again with the clicking)

Oh no! Was she throwing her life away on a game of chance with her cerebral artery? Did the rune indicate her loss of consciousness from brain trauma if she worked out, or her loss of self-esteem from being a pansy-pants who skipped out on it? Why couldn’t the stars, or whatever it is that controls the mystical website, give her a straight answer? This was a matter of life or death or floral trousers!

Maybe in her panic, she missed something in the list of words! Frantically, she scrutinized the nouns for another insight into her plight, and like a bolt of wisdom from the mysterious website deities, she finally understood. Her world was suffused with calm and enlightenment. The walls buzzed with the harmonic vibration of understanding. Then the industrial equipment just outside her office turned off, and the shaking stopped.

Mercenary Oyster Stallion.

Obviously everything was going to be okay.

McConfused.

In the break room refrigerator:
No, that is not the new, low-calorie McCafe invisiblé . It is four slightly milky ice cubes in a dirty cup. In the refrigerator, so soon it will be a small, slightly milky puddle of water in a dirty cup. What the fucking fuckity fuck fuck?
Even without the process of elimination (there is no one else here today), it would be pretty obvious that this is the work of the Vietnamese delegate. I only wish that I wasn't leaving early, so I could see him take home the empty cup at the end of the day. Presumably after he has licked the precious remnants of caramel-like liquid substance off the lid.

I thought it was just allergies.

The whole way to work this morning, the PRL delegate's left eye felt weird. The contact lens was uncomfortable, and she was constantly poking at it and rubbing her eye. Upon arrival at the workplace, she dripped a few drops of solution into it, to flush out any particulates, and to try and hydrate it. She took it out, rinsed it, and put it back in. But that was to no avail. She closed her right eye, and focused with the left. She closed the left eye and focused with her right. Both eyes focused, but not at the same distance. Everything was blurry from one eye when the other was clear, and clear when the other was focused. And it still felt like there was something stuck in there. She moved it around with her fingers, and winked her way through several conversations with coworkers until she gave up, took it out, and rubbed it with lens cleaning solution.

That's when one lens separated into two. A third lens was in her unaffected right eye. So where did the third contact come from? It is a mystery. A mystery that is currently sitting in a tiny polystyrene beaker (for lack of a contact lens case).

Expect to see breakthroughs on spontaneous mitosis of hydrophillic contact lenses in the near future.

Incident report: 10/07/2007

Driver: Romania

Occupants: Libya, Caucasia-NCA, PRL, Vietnam

Vehicle became stuck in traffic. Romanian delegate decided to listen to his favorite CD: “Greatest hits of 2005”

As “my hump” by the Black-Eyed Peas played, Romanian delegate declared “This is my favorite song!” and repeatedly increased volume via steering wheel-mounted controls over the course of the song. After the song ended, Romanian delegate lowered volume and turned to the rest of the UNC. Romanian delegate inquired: “What is ‘my hump’?”

Other delegates looked awkwardly out the windows and attempted to change the subject.

Spring time is Benadryl time.

The sound of spring in the UNC is the sound of post-nasal drip., Texas is home to one of the country's worst allergy seasons, and the UNC is not immune. It's been said that when one moves to an allergen-heavy location as an adult, their allergic response is much higher than if they had grown up there. And if there is one phrase that describes the United Nations of Carpool, it is "Not from around here."

The PRL delegate, in an attempt to suppress her symptoms, downs a cocktail of Claritin, Zyrtec, and Tylenol Allergy every morning, which renders her nigh on incoherent, but keeps the sneezing to a tolerable one or two violent fits per minute. Some of the other delegates, however, have not found their ideal mix of antihistamines. The noise of it would be enough to give a migraine to the mother of the PRL delegate (who was forever telling a young PRL:"Use a tissue! You're giving me a sinus headache just listening to you!").

The Vietnamese delegate favors a periodic, short, forceful and startlingly loud and porcine "SNORK!" at the back of the throat, often open-mouthed, in order to keep the nose-running at bay. (Dear sweet jaysus, forgive me for thinking this, but: Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Pig. If Pot-Bellied Pigs wore t-shirts left over from a mid-90s Nike ad campaign.)
bTexas, on the other hand, prefers a less frequent, slow and unpredictable "SNNNNNNNRRRRRNNNNNCCCHHH" from the nose, followed by a loud swallow. Caucasia-NCA seems to have his allergies mostly in check, but sometimes needs to utilize a quiet "sn sn sn sn" machine gun inhale.

The Libyan delegate, whose sinuses were likely scoured by sandstorms in his Saharan youth, seems unaffected by the Texas pollen. The Romanian delegate attributes his clear breathing to a daily dose of local beeswax.

On morning when the pollen count is particularly high, these various approaches to breathing combine to form a symphony of snot, the sonorous effect of which is impossible to translate into print. Like nap time at a sleep apnea convention during a rhinovirus epidemic.

In case you wondered what life is like, living with a research scientist: it sometimes sounds like this.