To whom it may concern:

Thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity to interview with your organization for a position of responsibility. I greatly appreciate the first phone interview, which took up 30 minutes of my any-time minutes, the writing sample which you asked me to do over Labor Day weekend, and the second interview, which required a trip to Charlotte, a good 2-hour drive away, all without reimbursement. I am most thankful for your telling me that you would be back in touch with your final decision by early last week and dragging it out until this evening, only to tell me that I'm over-qualified and have too much life-experience for your no-brainer, two-bit administrative position that I am willing to take because I need a job that badly. I regret that you changed your mind about the job description after our interviews, encouraging me, instead, to re-apply for a position of yet greater responsibility in the spring. Hopefully, I won't have gathered too much more life experience in the five or six months between now and then.

Ever your,

humble,

and bitter servant,

Lauren

Projectile

poo. That's right. Projectile poo. Did you know that a puffin can aim and squirt its poo a distance of about 8 feet with relative accuracy? This tidbit of knowledge came to my attention today when I visited the North Carolina Zoo. So there I was in this very chilly room watching the puffins play in the water, when I look up at the rocks along the far wall and see this one bird coming out of his little hideaway hole. He did the normal morning routine kind of like old Mr. Webster. He stood out on his stoop for a few minutes, and if he had opposable thumbs, I'm sure he would've been lighting a stogie and scratching in the appropriate places every once in awhile. Well, after standing there for a minute and getting his bearings (keep in mind, he wasn't fully awake yet), he turns his back to the crowd of puffins below, bends over, and (after peeking over his shoulder to take aim, I'm convinced!) squirted away. It managed to almost completely clear the rocks, and a small cloud of it fizzled into the water just in front of the few people watching. I can only hope that the tank has some sort of filtration system because I certainly didn't see a drain to flush it away. The end.

pesky pitfall

There's more than one way to kill a squirrel.