Dec, this one’s for you.
Real-world cakes aren’t enough? That’s just… okay, fine.
Dear Dacs,
Remember when I was Ant and you were Dec? How about when I was Nwanda and you were Knox?
Yeah, that was in high school. When we were going to have the Bestest. Research. Project. Ever. and go to the USA and kick butt and become super-famous scientists and cure cancer with garlic.
Only you and Dyan (she was Robbins to my Baskin, what is it with the nicknames?) can understand the horror of counting maggots that curved, launched into space, and landed who knows where. Only you can understand how important Bactrocera philippinensis is to my development as a person.
Only you can understand why I know that SDS-PAGE means sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis or what DMSO is (dimethyl sulfoxide) or why cuvettes and beakers and Petri dishes and flasks and all types of glassware bring back so many memories.
So.
One another memory.
Once upon a time, during senior batch elections, you and I ran against each for vice-president. Your party had a plan. Our party (Fantastic Four and Monica) wanted to sell taho. For the record, our fool party was the winningest one, even if we didn’t secure the top positions.
Anywayyyyy…
When it was time to cast our ballots, you couldn’t decide whom to vote for (WERE YOU CRAZY??!?). So you got a scientific calculator…
…which is useful for things other than writing “55378008” and “5537663”—“BOOBLESS” and “EGGLESS” if you’ve forgotten—and left it up to RND, the God of Random Numbers, to decide. What do you know, you voted for me!
THANKS!!! But even with your vote, I lost and you won. Because, hello, you were clearly the better person.
What I rrrrreaally want to say is:
Congratulations!
You’re still on the calendar. That Helvetica-using calendar, by the way, is a Stendig Calendar, a lovely object included in the Design Collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Only the best calendar for you, Dec! Since it’s your last year on it! Next up: Lotto tickets. JUST KIDDING!
From,
Ant/Nwanda/Sam (I want Randy to call me Nwanda, because I’m cool like that).
Images: dorsal view of fruit fly taken from old.padil.gov.au, photo credit goes to Ken Walker, Museum Victoria; lab glassware via; garlic, cake, calculator, and unmodified Stendig Calendar via Google Images.
