Yarg. Halfway through a small bowl of ziti with goat cheese, fresh basil and cherry tomatoes from the cafeteria, I encountered a ziti covered with what looks not at all like pepper or any other known spice, but in fact like a dusting of black mold. Or possibly kitchen-floor grit. In either case, lunch is over.

Eww. Are you going to take it back to the cafeteria?

In Pittsburgh, where my dad was doing a residency, I was eating some macaroni in the hospital cafeteria when I bit into something hard. I thought it was uncooked macaroni, but it turned out my first tooth had fallen out. It was small and white and looked like a tooth, and I almost ate it.

I just spat it out and threw it away and I'll go rinse my mouth in a second. If I were more civic-minded I'd take it back down to the caf because the lunch rush is just starting and they really shouldn't have the EW FUCKING GROSS out there poisoning staff and students and patients' families, but I just feel disgruntled and disinclined to scoop it back up out of the trash, trundle back down four flights of stairs, argue with the cashiers over $1.50 worth of pasta, and then stand there for another 20 minutes while various staff and supervisors are called and they try to figure out whose responsibility it is to get it out of there (um, yes, I have alerted them to skeevy foods before, so unfortunately I know the procedure).

I really need to never eat there again.

I really need to never eat there again.

Yes, please don't.

So how the fucking fucking FUCK do you cat owners get a cat into a cat-carrying box? HOW?

Tail-end in first with the up-ended crate is easier.

Yes, this. This is what we used to do with Beastie. It prevents the kitty from bracing his back legs efficiently. Just make sure you get the door close the moment is head has dropped inside the carrier.

Captain Appropriate is just not driving the tugboat.

Tugboat. BWAH!

Okay, actually, I don't care one bit about the timing of presents. I just like getting them.

That's for sure.

I wouldn't. Even without the eating for two thing. I would pursue it, though. Because I need to Win One right now and making cafeteria staff cry? Might look like "Close enough." So, lucky for them, they grossed you out and not me.

The cafeteria used to rock -- run by the Dept. of Nutrition at the nursing school, with tasty and healthy menus designed by Dean Ornish, who used to have a faculty appointment here. Then, during the incredibly disastrous attempted merger with Stanford back in '98 or thereabouts, it was decided that it'd be more efficient to outsource all the caf work to Marriott. Ever since then, TEH SUCK. Also, the nutrition students have lost a work-study opportunity. But, hey, at least they're saving money, and it's not like student education and staff satisfaction mean shit compared to saving money!

And on a completely different topic, nodnodnod to everyone who says load the cat into the carrier tail-first. Headfirst, the forelegs splay in this totally load-thwarting brace-and-resist motion that you can't overcome without breaking the cat, but hinderparts first, kitty just pops right in and the splaying and bracing doesn't do a speck of good.

It was small and white and looked like a tooth, and I almost ate it.

BWAH!!!

I really need to never eat there again.

No, no you don't. That's just, ugh. No.

So how the fucking fucking FUCK do you cat owners get a cat into a cat-carrying box? HOW?

I have a top-loading carrier and that helps immensely. Once I have my cat (which is a trick in itself), I hold him in one arm with his feet hanging down. With the opposite hand, I grab all four legs otherwise, he'll splay them and I can't get him in. Then, in one swift motion, I shove him down in the box and close the lid very quickly.

Cats can be tricksy, but I have thumbs. I win.