Wednesday 30 April 2008

It's Hot As Hell In Here!

It’s not easy being the student representative for the maths department; every damn postgraduate mook wants you to lobby for them. Case in point: Danny and BT, who are annoyed about how hot the office has gotten. This leads to an oddly amusing half-hour of attempting to locate the University’s health and safety policy on temperature.

Danny: Hurry up, it’s getting hotter!
SS: It is not!
Danny: It is! The Thai Buddha thermometer you got me says so.
SS: I wouldn’t put too much faith into that thing; it cost me one-ninety nine from Woolworths. Plus, I’m pretty sure IBB broke it last week.
Danny: Just find the damn policy, would you?
SS: It’s pretty difficult to navigate.
BT: Nothing on temperature?
SS: No, although I can tell you our policy on chemical weapon attack, if you want.
Danny: We have a policy in case we get hit with Agent Orange?
SS: Yes. Also if we contract gastroenteritis, or if we get covered in amniotic fluid.
BT: What the Hell goes on in this university?
SS: Ah!
Danny: You got it?
SS: Maybe. It’s a check-list for office safety. Say, we’re not using razor-blades instead of scissors, are we?
BT: We try to keep sharp objects out of your reach.
SS: Very wise. We can tick that box, anyway.
Danny: Are you going to read the whole form?
SS: Wait! I’ve got it. The magic number for maximum temperature is… thirty degrees.
Danny: You’re kidding! We could open up a damn sauna. This is outrageous.
SS: The policy on amniotic fluid is pretty slap-dash, too.
BT: So we can’t get the university to do anything?
SS: They did install those tinted windows.
Danny: That just make the room darker.
SS: And those fans.
Danny: They just make the room louder.
BT: They’re also a hazard to paper work.
Danny: Do you have any work on paper?
BT: Shut up.
SS: If we can focus, the key aspect to all of this is: you’re boned.
Danny: But it’s hot as Hell!
SS: It’s only twenty-five degrees.
Danny: In April. In the North-East.
SS: Come back to me in June, then.
Danny: I’ll be a shrivelled, desiccated husk by then!
SS: We could turn off the computers.
Danny: We’re not allowed to turn off the computers.
BT: We could throw the computers out of the window; claim the insurance.
SS: Hypothetically speaking, BT, what would we write on the claims form?
BT: That the computers exploded from the heat.
SS: What, exploded, levitated, threw themselves out of the window, and smashed themselves on the ground?

A pause

BT: I’m starting to come around to this sauna idea.
SS: Ooh! We could grow tomatoes.
Danny: Or pineapples.
SS: Or opium.
BT: We could be drugs dealers!
Danny: Driving around in limousines with tinted windows.
SS: Haven’t we already decided that would just make it unbearably hot? We’d be halfway through hiring our first bunch of runners before we’d spontaneously explode, levitate, smash through the window, and throw ourselves to the ground.
BT: So what do you suggest.
SS: Erm, we check ourselves for gastroenteritis?

Our heroes exit, intent upon checking the firmness of their stools.

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