what's both acidic and basic? it's not what you think.
"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring."
- Chuck Palahniuk
this is what i wrote on a whiteboard in the VA hospital where i work. my quotation was displayed for all of two minutes before one of the therapists (i work in the rehab clinic as a summer student) saw it and said "oh, no, that's not appropriate at all. that needs to come down." i'd sort of expected it, so i quickly grabbed a towel and wiped it off, but i was still a little bitter.
for one, the woman who wanted it taken down, janie, hardly had time to have read the whole thing. i could almost see her get as far as "all God does is kill us" before she protested, averting her eyes and turning her back like i'd carved a swastika into the door. i'd sort of hoped that, if someone did ask me to take it down, it would be more of a request and less of a mandate - there might be some sympathy involved, too, like, "I appreciate the message you're getting at here, James, but maybe this isn't the best quote to do it? The second sentence might be enough to get the point across." instead i felt slapped in the face.
so when i picked my second quote, i wanted to be untouchable, on religious grounds. i googled quotes by saints, and when i found "The road to hell is paved with priests' skulls," i seriously considered putting it up. instead i opted for one i can't find readily that went something like this: "Hell is full of the talented, but Heaven of the energetic." a positive, christian message, right? wrong, apparently. that one went down after thirty seconds - apparently, because the VA is a government hospital, we're not permitted to put quotes of any kind on display. at all. i guess janie just didn't notice the quotes that mysteriously appeared on the board all last week, otherwise she would have cracked down sooner.
the second time she told me to take it down, and that quoted sayings of any kind are not allowed to exist in a government establishment (unless they come straight from Bumblefuck Bush, i guess), the other therapists were curious, and - i might have imagined this - a little defiant. i quickly walked out of the room under the pretense of checking the pH levels of the exercise pool, but i could hear muffled discourse going on for a couple minutes after i'd left, and then my boss, Ross, asked me what i'd written. i told him and he laughed a little bit, and rolled his eyes as though to say yeah, that'll do it. he told me to steer clear of anything religious - that there were "a couple religious freaks in the workplace" - but that he generally liked the quotes i put on the board, and wanted to see more of them. in other words, janie is a crazy fundamentalist, don't listen to her.
so now i'm pissed off. because not only did janie try to intimidate me with some government bullshit, knowing that i don't know my elbow from my ass when it comes to any sort of policy, just because she didn't agree with the so-called message i was trying to project, but she was also rude about it. i'm an understanding guy when it comes to that stuff - if someone has a problem with something i've written, i'll generally take it back and apologize, because i'm one of those people whose knee-jerk reaction is to avoid trouble at all costs. unless i already strongly dislike the person who's got a problem. my point is that i didn't need to be intimidated, or treated like a naughty little boy, because i would have taken it down anyway. and on top of that - who the fuck is this woman, to impose her ideas of appropriate and inappropriate on me without so much as a thought for my intentions?
i've already got the go-ahead from my boss to continue writing quotes on the board. so the question is - do i abuse the privilege and go straight for the jugular? or do i play nice and quote jack handey for the next three weeks until it's time to go back to school? it's clear now that, though i'll most likely work at the VA hospital again next summer, i can't come back to the rehab clinic. not with a fundy there, claws bared and all. so do i wait for the parting shot, or declare open warfare as soon as possible and see how many hits i can get in by mid august? the one thing i don't want to do is shrink back and let her ignore me like she did for the rest of the day today. ignoring her in return doesn't satisfy well enough; it lets her think she's winning.
i'm still not sure what i'll do, but in the meantime i have this to ponder:
"We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection."
- Dalai Lama