Bartleby

I'm at that point in the semester when my preferred response to pretty much every thing would be "I prefer not."

Bardiac, you need to be at this really important meeting to discuss stuff for a committee you won't be on next year.  "I prefer not."

Bardiac, there's a special student event you need to go to.  "I prefer not."

And so on.

It's not that I don't go to my share of "special student events."  I do.  Last week, I spent maybe four hours at special student stuffs.  They were good hours, but they were hours when I wasn't prepping or grading or doing committee work or doing other work, none of which doesn't also need to get done.

All of these special student things are important to the students involved.  I know that.  But they also sometimes feel like I'm watching the clubhouse of mutual congratulations.  This goes doubly for a certain faculty person who will not stop talking or trying to run things despite being retired.


I noticed yesterday that I had a headlight out, so I went to the car mechanic to get it replaced.  He opened it up, pulled the bulb, and off he went.  A moment later he came back to tell me that they'd replaced a bulb in another car that didn't quite need replacing, and they didn't actually have a new bulb, but they'd put the used bulb in mine, and didn't charge me.  But he also noticed that the dye he'd put in the air conditioning system had indeed leaked, so that would need work at some point if I want to run the a/c.  And worst of all, he pointed out some areas where the insulation looked like mice had been at it, which isn't that horrible, except that if mice are after your car's insulation, they may also be heading for the wiring, and repairing wiring gets VERY expensive.  So he suggested I put a couple of moth balls in the compartment, and that might drive the mice away.

I stopped at the hardware store and bought a box of moth balls, and put five on each side of the compartment, closed the hood, and went in, closing the garage door.  And within a little while, the whole area began to smell of moth balls.  Bleargh.  So I went back, took all but four of the moth balls out, put the moth ball box in a plastic bag, and closed the hood again, this time leaving the garage door open.  I left it open til fairly late, but you could still smell the moth balls in the garage pretty well in the morning.  I hope the mice run away. 

I think I need to clean the garage and make sure that anything that could be food for mice is gone, and that anything that could be nesting material is also gone.  (The food, well, I did put some dead marigolds in there over the winter, so I moved them out.  Now I have to get rid of hiding places, too.)

It's always something.  Though I would prefer not.