There are lots of reasons to avoid going to my mailbox in the Medieval Studies department here at my university. It’s on the other side of campus from the English department where my TF** duties are; I might run into my DGS and face uncomfortable questions about my Mario-to-dissertation ratio***; and usually when I check it, the only things in my box are calls-for-papers for conferences with names like “Medieval Lint in the Early 12th Century: New Critical Approaches” or “Guys Named Chuck in Lay Devotional Texts.”
So imagine my surprise and horror to discover that someone sent me a gift back in February, and it’s been sitting in my little cubby hole for three months. And not just any gift–it was a knitted winter hat! Man, I could have used that all winter, which in New Haven lasts for approximately 11.2 months a year. And in .8 months, I’m going to Georgia for the summer, where even Michael Nesmith doesn’t wear his trademark wool cap.
It just goes to prove that old saying: if you complain on your blog about how nobody appreciates you, someone will send you a wool hat. Thanks from the bottom of my heart–I mean, from the top of my head.
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*I am aware that some people find the word ‘chick’ offensive. For me, ‘chick’ is the female equivalent of ‘dude’. It’s only offensive if you find faux hipsterness offensive.
**TF is Yale for TA.
***Roughly 20.2 to 1.7.