I have just begun a new rotation - toxicology. It promises to be really cool - learning, learning, learning. Toxicologists are the best for nerding out about fascinating effects of different toxins. Our case load includes lots of OD's - intentional or unintentional. Lots of accidental pediatric poisonings. Some mysteries, too. Yesterday there was a mysterious case that I was assigned a chapter of reading for in a book so thick that everyone has to read a chapter then share what they know because the knowledge base on this stuff is so expansive that you can't possibly hold it all in your head. So I was being called the resident expert on Copper poisoning - although I'm pretty sure they were just being nice to me.
So today for toxicology, we had a meeting at the CDC. We drove over separately, me in my family's beloved green station wagon with no A/C. The green station wagon has become a bit of a surrogate barn, and it's a real mess. There are lots of things in it - random things - whose company I am not thrilled to be driving around with. A brief list, just off the top of my head: two bowls with dried remains of yogurt/flaxseed breakfasts, three spoons, one coffee mug, a giant steel ring, Puppy Rug, stuffed Unicorn, several back-packs, wayward girlies' art...etc. Therefore I felt embarrassed when I arrived at the CDC and had to submit to a car search. I ride around with my items knowing that most people cannot see IN my car, and so it's okay. But Maxim, the guard, asked me to pull over, so he could look through my car.
So I'm opening doors, popping the trunk (which has to be propped with a length of bamboo because its hydraulics broke), and making small talk.
Maxim: "We just have to check out all vehicles to make sure you don't have any weapons."
Me: Ha ha no weapons here! Just a huge mess!
Maxim: Hey, that's a sensible bumper sticker. "I brake for trains." It'd be a shame if you didn't brake for trains, right?
Me: Ha ha. Yeah. My husband works at a steel yard that does rail work. Maxim: Oh, really? (Leaning into trunk now) My dad worked for CSX for yea- Ma'am I'm not going to be able to allow you to enter the CDC in this vehicle.
Me: Ha ha. What?
Maxim: You have machetes. You can't go in with these.
Me: Ohhhh. (walking around to the trunk area). Oh, yeah. Machetes. (Indeed, there they are, beside a cast iron pot and the stuffed unicorn - two machetes.) Those are my husband's. He's a little lost without a barn, so he stores some of the would-be barn stuff in the car. Sorry about that - didn't mean any harm.
Maxim: Well, I'm sorry, I can't let you in. In fact, I'm going to have to write up this incident because you attempted to go onto CDC property with two machetes. (His tone is serious.)
Me: (voice rising uncontrollably) Um - will I get a...a ticket? Or something?
Maxim: No, I just have to write it up. After that, I don't care what you do, you can even go drop off your machetes and then come back.
So that's what I did. Maxim wrote me up, I took the machetes (and a hatchet and a hack saw that he didn't get far enough into the tangle to see) 1/4 mile up the road and stashed them in some thick kudzu, then came back to the CDC with my same messy car, sans cutting implements. Maxim laughed genuinely when I drove up, checked my car double-safe, then let me in to go to journal club.
Also today, I got to see presentations on relief work in Haiti, on marine envenomations, on the inception of Super Fund, and participate in a discussion about an article about Toxic Shock Syndrome and tampon use. I think I'm in the right place. It was a good day.
Here are the tools when I went to pick them up:
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