that's trashy

well, dear readers, it's a day for an afternoon post because we're having bigwigs from the NIH inspect our study site today. i thought that just maybe it'd be better if i looked like i was doing actual "work" instead of "blogging" (please note the unnecessary air quotes. it's my new thing.). i think, however, that they're in the conference room eating their lunches. and so i've snuck onto blogger.com. see how dedicated i am? yep, i'm willing to risk my job for you people. okay, so maybe not. if my job was like, "you have to stop blogging or you'll be fired," i'd be like, "ok." because i talk a good game but i'm actually a pussy.

speaking of horrible things happening at work, i have to share a story that happened to amanda's boyfriend yesterday. none of this is fabricated or exaggerated. lemme just say that. and, for those of you whose stomachs weren't strong enough for the cockroach story, you might wanna go here.

apparently, amanda's boyfriend (who will remain nameless but whose name starts with an e and rhymes with schmeddie), who's the facilities manager at this big lawfirm (as a day job, of course, because he's a writer.) gave orders to throw out a bunch of paperwork that he thought was trash. and apparently this paperwork wasn't trash; it was sensitive documents that shouldn't have been thrown away.

did he have to go to the trashcan to fish out the papers?

no.

did he have to go down to the trash compacting room in the building to fish out the papers?

no.

did he have to go home to astoria, where amanda met him to buy coveralls and boots and a mask, and then go back into lower manhattan at 8:30pm, to wait on the garbage truck's arrival and then follow it into new jersey, where it would dump the trash off at a landfill, and then climb into that landfill and see if he could salvage any papers he could find?

yes, he did.

now, dear readers, i thought about it. and i don't know if i've ever heard of something so horrible happening to someone i know, short of them having someone in their lives die. next to death, this is about the worst. that guy i knew who went to prison for statutory rape...that's pretty bad, too. but this: sifting through a landfill in new jersey, a landfill that looks like this......yeah, i think that's the worst thing i've ever heard happening to another human being. and i know him.