Have you ever met someone that makes you think "Geez, I'm freakin' Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm compared to this poor guy!"?  Well, I recently have met such a person.  And he wears rubber gloves.  Actually, I think they may be latex - I'm not quite sure, and I'm certainly not sure why he was wearing them.

This guy's name is Reggie and he runs the multimedia lab at the community college where I am currently attending.  I vacillate between wanting to strangle him, feeling sorry for him, and having empathy for him.  Don't get me wrong, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about him, but he does come up in conversation a lot among the Anatomy & Physiology students because we have to deal with him if we want to use the multimedia lab for extra credit.

The other day, I requested a CD to use for my assignment, and before he would give it to me, he put on a pair of latex gloves to take my student ID, retrieve the CD, and hand the CD to me.  Maybe he is afraid of my germs?  I've heard of people who have this kind of concern.  Maybe he was afraid of giving me his germs?  Hmmm....  I simply don't know.

At the beginning of the semester, we all had to go through an "orientation" that was supposed to tell us how to use the lab.  It really was more of a "what not to do, or else I'll be pissed as hell".  The minutiae of actually using the lab was not included in the discussion, like how to get a user ID if you are new student on campus (I was and couldn't get into the system), or the fact that you needed a print card to print the assignments (he says he mentioned it, no student remembers hearing it).  The orientation included a great deal of discussion about pushing in chairs to prevent injury to blind students who might trip over them.  Apparently the blind student situation comes up more frequently than, say, printing our assignments, or trying to sign into the system.  The lab was actually designed to be a blind person's obstacle course, we just use it as a computer multimedia lab as an auxiliary purpose.

I can easily say that Reggie could have an article written about him titled "My Most Unforgettable Character", but I don't think Reader's Digest would print it.