I've Been Slaving Over a Hot Rat Brain All Day

"So, what is your major?"

"Uh...I'm not--I haven't declared anything yet, but I'd like to double major in English and Film."

"So, do you have a science background at all?"

"I've worked with rodents in grade school for science fair. I also had a gerbil."

"Does the smell of rats bother you? If you notice carefully, it smells like rats."

I stopped for a moment to smell carefully.

"Oh yeah. I did notice a little smell, yeah."

"Does it bother you?" the interviewer asked, staring unblinkingly at me.

"No. I mean, I've had pets all my life. And once I spent a day in a room at the simiang cage at the Cleveland Zoo."

"Do you have any allergies?"

"To cat dander. But I have a cat, so..."

"Another part of the job involves you making the implants we use for the sleep study. So that'll involve soldering."

"My dad's an engineer, so he taught me how to solder. That's not a problem."

"Alright, then, so you'd think you'd like the job?"

"Uh...sure."

I stumbled here. We'd been talking about the job for five minutes now, and I'd read a few summaries of the job online, but most of it just said "Assistant to Sleep Lab" and mentioned there were rats. No description of the job mentioned what rats had to do with sleep studies or why I would need to solder anything. Throughout the conversation, the interviewer seemed slightly nervous. I was calm. I generally tense up in situations like this, but I didn't really care at this point. If I was really wrong for the job it wouldn't have been a heartbreak to get the axe right off the bat. There was a general, unspoken agreement in our conversation that pointed towards her desperation to find an assistant. As long as I fit the basest criteria, she wanted me onboard, with as little knowledge of the job as possible.

"Let me bring you back to meet the gang," she said, rising and pushing past me towards the back of the cramped, C-shaped office.

We entered a smaller room where three people were seated and working on various things.

"This is Zjonna," she said, pointing to a woman who failed to accept my offer to shake hands.

"Hello," she grunted.

"Zjonna's doing what we spend most of our time doing here," the interviewer explained.

I leaned in closer to get a better look.

"She's performing surgery on a rat," the interviewer continued.

I stopped leaning.

"Oh," I responded.

"And," the interviewer began to pick up steam, "over here Jessica is soldering those things I told you about. She's been doing it for a while, so she'll be happy to teach you how to do it."

Jessica was making tiny metal devices, smaller than a fingernail. I was immediately frightened that I didn't have the soldering knowledge to make something so tiny and intricate. This fear was quickly replaced with other, better ones.

"So, as you can see, the rats are over here," the interviewer pointed to a bunch of plastic cages containing white and brown rats. They were not much larger than mice, and it was hard not to think of them as cute. "And here, is the finished product."

She held up a case containing a rat who looked to be unconscious. The top of the rat's head was split open, and one of Jessica's tiny metal probe's was stuck inside, fixed to the rodent's brain.

"That's so we can study their sleep," the interviewer explained.

"Oh," I replied.

"So we can expect you at 1:30 on Thursday? With your paperwork?"

"...yeah. Right."

I only bring this up because I know that there was probably a point in my life where stuff like this used to bother me.

SPECIAL BONUS THOUGHT:

I'm no scientist, but it seems to me that it would be easier for the mice to sleep if they didn't have a piece of metal lodged in their brains. That's what I call "a variable."