The Francesca Incident

A package arrived at the lab today filled with items which definitely should not have gone to us. I won't go into details about the contents of the package, but suffice it to say there may be legal implications for the sender. As Kathy was delivering the package to the lab director, Lisa and i debated the merits of various methods of disposing of this package.

"We should sell it on eBay; i'll bet you that the right buyer would give us a cool million for that," i said, with some exaggeration. Half a million might have been more reasonable.

"No, we absolutely cannot do that!" Lisa stated quickly. She continued on for a moment about how it was irresponsible, or something.

"You still can't tell whether i'm kidding or not, can you?"

"As a general policy, i assume that you're serious until proven otherwise," she explained.

"I suppose that's a sound policy, given the Francesca incident," i conceded. Michelle, our new chemist, was standing next to Lisa when all of this happened, so she went on to explain the Francesca incident for Michelle's benefit.

These days i'm a little more reserved than i was in my teenage years, and so, unless we met during an episode of me exhibiting my almost Jack Sparrow-like affection for rum, it may take you some time before you discover that i have no shame. None. When placed in a more professional environment, it may take a little longer for this quality to come out, but rest assured that it will. My co-workers have discovered over the years that when i say things like, "i'm just going to crawl under my desk and take a nap," it's going to happen. And when Tom brings in a Barbie T-shirt with pink rhinestones on it and requests that i wear it for the rest of the day, this is also going to happen. I'm not even going to take that shirt off before my bus ride home.

So therefore, when Lisa, for reasons i cannot remember anymore, dared me to answer the phone and introduce myself as Francesca, less than two months after either of us had begun working at the lab (so this is probably about September of 2006), that too was going to happen. And so, within five minutes of Lisa's proposition, it did.

I didn't even bother to disguise my voice. I picked up the phone with my customary greeting, replacing my own name with that of Francesca. "[name of lab], this is Francesca," i said, my tone and inflection not at all marred by the humor of the situation.

The man on the other end of the phone was clearly staggered. He took a moment before he stammered out his request: "Hi...er, um...Francesca...is Karen available?" Karen is my direct supervisor.

"Yes she is. If you'll hold for one moment, i'll see if i can find her for you."

"Ok," he said, still a little unsure.

"Please hold," i said, pushing the hold button and hanging up the phone. Lisa and i burst into tears and i'll bet the uproar of our laughter could be heard from the next lab over. I took a moment to compose myself, and then struck out to find Karen. At this particular time, that was uncharacteristically easy. Usually when people call for her, Karen is nowhere to be found. I was slightly disappointed; i was sort of looking forward to picking the phone back up and saying something to the effect of, "This is Francesca again, i can't seem to find her. Would you like to leave a message?"

I think this incident pretty well set the stage for our relation over the next several years. I don't use the word "relation" by accident here, either; Lisa and i have come to refer to each other as "Mom" and "Son," respectively.

Not long after we'd gotten into that habit, Roni was asking me why i called Lisa Mom. So i enlightened her: it's because we had realized that, under the right conditions, she could've been my mom. She's 16 years older than i am. Roni's response was: "Oh! Then i suppose i could be your grandma!" This was clearly one of those reactions where the mouth moved before the brain, because once she had considered her comment, she realized that not only was it just as possible for her to be my grandma, it was far more likely. Roni is 43 years my senior. Once she put this together, she started moaning, "Oh nooooo! I didn't really mean that!!"

But it was too late. From then on, Lisa referred to her as my grandma.