There is a distinct possibility that overexposure to testosterone and not seeing the sun for thirteen days is starting to loosen a few screws. The other day I was finishing up my only mudcheck of the night (It was a slow day. We were tripping out of the hole, aka pulling the drill bit and drill pipe out, so nothing much happens on the mud side of things) and I got a call from the company man. He asked if I had a minute to come over to the offices because he and Ryan wanted to talk to me about something. To be honest my immediate reaction was, "Uh-Oh, what did I do wrong? I really don't think I have done anything stupid, especially not anything stupid with witnesses." So I headed over as quick as possible, and walk into the office. The company man turns to me, looking completely serious, and in a flat deadpan voice asks, "What are your opinions on Bigfoot?" The next hour was spent discussing a wide range of topics. Including all sorts of cryotozoological creatures (even another of my favorites, the Tasmanian tiger), and other obscure random topics like "man scaping." Another time he questioning how we calculate one of our numbers and asking detailed questions about one of our sets of tests that we use to measure how thick our mud is and how much force it will take to move it. He was joking about testing us and said the real test would be if he remembered the information later. So naturally we wrote him up a quick multiple choice test that he now has posted on his door. He scored 115% since he answered the favorite mud engineer question with my name.
I don't recall if I previously mentioned an incident where I using an extendable armed bucket to scoop mud out of a pit and the bottom half dropped into the pit. On that occasion, the bucket and half a stick made a pretty artistic spiral when it wrapped around the agitator before we could turn it off. Well, a very similar thing happened this hitch with a different bucket. So I will now never live either incident down. Though in my defense, this was all equipment breakage, not me being an idiot and dropping things. But I still feel like a dummy.
There have been several entertaining events over these two weeks. One evening someone called out for me over the loud speaker. It went something like this, "Hello mudman Miriam. Uhhh...I mean...ummm, let me start over....mud engineer Miriam!" It's fairly entertaining to watch everyone stumble a bit after they say "gentlemen" or some other masculine term and then try and throw in a "ladies" with it. I'm always like, "Plural? Who's the other lady in the room?" We did have another woman up here working with the geologists but she worked days and I never really saw her. Also, I apparently also scare people when I use our speaker system. The alarms for high levels in tanks are a woman's voice. So I've been mistaken for an alarm when I'm just trying to get a hold of someone.
Overall, it has been a rather entertaining and fast hitch. I don't feel like I have been here for two weeks. It is hard to believe I just need to get through 12 more hours as a mud monster of the night and I'll be starting the trek to my new home in Washington!
