I went in to work a shift at the art school on Saturday. I've been sick for little over a week now. My nose was running well. Fifteen minutes before the place was going to close up for the night, a teacher calls me down to the lobby and asks me to spray down all the charcoal drawings hanging in the rooms on the third and fourth floors with fixative.

I grab the can, open all the windows in each room, take a deep breath, and begin spraying. I couldn't smell anything, and of course, I know that the fixative stuff really shouldn't be sprayed inside. But it was fifteen minutes before closing time, for gord's sake, and I'm afraid of that particular teacher in the first place.

Anyway, the lady in charge of us techies was super-pissed. At first, I thought it was at me. Luckily, didn't turn out as such. Said she was angry at the teacher for not telling me to spray outside...even though, said I, "I knew that I shouldn't have been spraying inside." The point is, you try getting such a task done in fifteen minutes, taking down all the work, bringing it all outside without snow getting on it, bringing all back in before doors are locked...

The Donkey Serenade

There's a song in the air
but the fair senorita
doesn't seem to care
for the song in the air
So I'll sing to my mule
if you're sure she won't think that
I am just a fool
serenading a mule

Amigo mio, does she not have a dainty bray?
She listens carefully to each little word we play
La bella Senorita?
Si, si, mi muchachito
She'd love to sing it too if only she knew the way.
But try as she may
in her voice there's a flaw!
And all that the lady can say
is "E-E-AW!"