From: The BPI Squirrel
To: BPI Budget Committee
It has come to my attention that the Janitor Professor of Astrology, while taking a break from his duties as the Professor of Astrology Janitor, visited France. Apparently this was to research last week’s Kossascopes. (More)
So I get stuck in a pet carrier in the baggage compartment without a movie or even those tiny bags of peanuts, then spend three days in a tree with no hotel room or even a press credential, to relay already-broken news from a conservative conference, in my staff role as BPI’s roving correspondent …
… and the Janitor Professor of Astrology goes to France to research Kossascopes?
This is unacceptable. Admittedly, it wasn’t exactly a pleasure trip for him. He jumped out of a perfectly good airplane (that part I get), while it was flying (that part I don’t get), with a parachute (my cousins the flying squirrels pack their own), and landed on a moving high-speed train. This was “research?” How, exactly, did that help him know what would happen for me or anyone else this weekend?
And did that “research” come out of the budget for BPI’s state-of-the-art High Energy Meta Mojo Elucidation Detector (HEMMED) Lab? I hope not. They found my garden gnome when no one else could! What if someone steals it it disappears again? Will the HEMMED Lab still be able to find it for me?
Take a look at the logo for this esteemed institution. Whose picture is there? The Janitor Professor of Astrology’s? No, mine. Who hosts Furthermore!, our campus soapbox? Me. Who hosts Campus Chatter? My cousins. (I would but it posts while I’m feeding the baby.) There’s a reason BPI’s sports teams are The Fightin’ Squirrels, or would be if we had sports teams.
I’m not asking to go to France and jump out of an airplane, while it’s flying, with a parachute, to land on a moving train. That’s nuts, and not the kind of nuts I like. I’m just saying that with the money you spent on that “research,” I could get a seat with a movie and a bag of peanuts when I have to fly, and a hotel room when I get there. Or you could have saved the money on the parachute rental and let the Janitor Professor of Astrology hold onto some of my flying cousins, who pack their own parachutes. I’m sure they wouldn’t drop him on purpose.
Hold on. Pootie the Precious sent me something on my Blewberry.
Oh. The Janitor Professor of Astrology didn’t go to France. It was a joke.
Sorry. I guess I should eat breakfast before I read. I was hungry, and you know how I get when I’m hungry….
This is so cute, Crissie. Thanks for the uplift.
And I’m taking the Squirrel’s side. It’s really not fair of us to make him travel in luggage when he could just as well travel in the overhead bin and receive a nut or two from a kindly passenger below. As long as he doesn’t chew any wiring that is.
As for a hotel… well, I would have thought the tree more comfortable than a concrete ledge, but evidently I’m wrong. Perhaps he would prefer a better view from, say, the top of the Eiffel Tower?
Squirrel@BPI: The overhead bin? How could I see the movie from the overhead bin? I’m not asking for a first class seat. At my size, a coach seat would feel like first class. But I’d like a seat. One with a button to push for the flight attendant, to ask for more peanuts. And a room in a hotel that has room service. Or at least one of those minibar things. They usually have a jar of macadamias, right?
Have you looked at the price of macadamias? Especially from the hotel minibar? Maybe you’d better check the campus budget. Not even the full-time faculty are allowed to get the minibar keys unless they want to pay the bill themselves….
Conservation, you know.
Yikes. Failure to Eat Breakfast can make someone humor-challenged? Something important to note. 😉
By the way, BPI Squirrel, here is another not-really-a-joke: the fees for having luggage go with you on vacation is called an “Excess Baggage Fee”. Ha ha ha. Because, of course, for a 5 day trip from Wisconsin (cold) to Florida (hot) one would not be expected to need any luggage…it would all be Excess. Underwear and toothbrush (no toothpaste — for security reasons) in your carry-on. Fine vacation.
By the way, I was rummaging through the HEMMED lab earlier and found this photo. Are these your cousins also?
You don’t get it. You’re supposed to wear only what you need to survive WI autumn and carry nothing because when you arrive in sunny FL you should be ready to strip to your bikini. What else could you possibly need?
Squirrel@BPI: Yes, they’re training for the rappelling portion of the Ultimate Squirrel Race. The grueling six-hour event is run every year, starting in Boston Commons and ending in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles.
No, a squirrel can’t get from Boston to Los Angeles in six hours. The get-the-macadiamas-anything-goes race is held in each city park at sunrise. They don’t hold one in a Honolulu Park because the macadamia nuts are grown there and the squirrels hang out in the macadamia trees, not in the parks.
As for luggage, what do you carry? I just take my Blewberry. But I don’t change clothes often.