Bloodborne.

Today, this morning, I went to my HR orientation with Wayzata, and like most orientations I've been to, when photo IDs were required, I had not washed my hair.

I had an Ambien hangover, David and I both did this morning, but the drive was short because I stayed with him in Minneapolis last night. And when I packed for this meeting, it never crossed my mind that I should dress nicely. It just crossed my mind to pack pants.

So I was surprised this morning when I was the only one wearing jeans, the only one with greasy hair, the last one to show up who had to crawl over people to the back of the room, the only one who had to leave 10 minutes into the meeting to go clog her runny nose with tissue-thin toilet paper and then tuck it into the pocket of her purple hoodie.

Fucking fancy-ass Wayzata. And your khakis.

All good news today. A raise already because of a flub in my first contract, insurance that pays me $90 a month instead of me paying anything in, the news that I'll be in two different rooms next year but at least will be able to put my things in one of them.

And typical HR videos, oh yes. But the same thing happened to me that always does in these situations: I think things are funny as hell, and nobody else does, everyone else is too shy or too stuff-shirted to laugh at the funny.

The first video we watched was about Bloodborne Pathogens: 15 minutes of precaution. It was an experience I assume students have when teachers pop-in videos that are made to be accessible and fun even though it's a serious topic! And so the lady with the big teeth said we're going to make this learning as easy as possible for you! And then she discussed how to take off gloves and what kind of diseases someone can get from blood while wacky graphics (kind of like the intro to Saved by the Bell) danced in the background and the sound effect of screeching tires or a needle being dragged off a record (like whoa, what did she just say! That's an important statistic!) interrupted her speech every four seconds.

Also, it was like that science show Beakman's World that I used to watch every Saturday morning, fast-paced and trying to make boring things fun, making me wish I had the materials in my house to try some of the experiments.

There are three types of bloodborne pathogens. One is HIV and the other two are Hepatitis B and C. The video portrayed these as a metaphor, so when the narrator said Watch out for the big three--HIV, HB, and HC! the scene cut to three kids wearing letter jackets. One of the kids' letter jackets with HIV sewn down the side.

Of course, I started laughing. And nobody else in the room did. I snorted, everyone else took it seriously. Dude. He had a letter jacket that said HIV and he pointed at the letters with the same attitude accused-baby-daddy have backstage on the Maury Povich show.

Also, the amount of blood in this movie was preposterous. I think it's a little weird that I have to spend so much time on blood training in the first place, but the scenarios in this movie involved a student with such a wretched bloody nose that it covered his entire face, and a Koi pond size amount of blood in the hallway (that a teacher had to clean up). In fact, the video showed this amount of blood on numerous occasions. To myself: well, I guess there are a number of things we need to consider when it comes to those school shootings. I mean, who the fuck is going to clean that shit up? Obviously teachers in business skirts with latex gloves. It was like she was frantically cleaning up after a murder.

The next video was about harassment (hilarious before it even starts). At one point in the movie, the characters (a group of employees discussing their employee handbook in a conference room) were reluctant about the importance of harassment rules. (Duh, harassment is important, you guys! Don't be fucking stupid!)

My second-favorite part of the movie was when the black guy used the word "Oriental" to describe Asians, and the others were like Oriental is not the appropriate term and he was like: do they even care if you call them that? How do you know? Does your cat get mad when you call it Siamese?

And my favorite part of the movie was during the "gay" part, when the men in the movie were chided for talking in effeminate voices about decorating their offices. (By the way, not okay, everybody.) The person offended by these voices was a straight man, and in order to highlight this, the movie cut to an interview with the man (a la Real World with him talking to the camera) and he said I just don't think it's okay for the guys to act like this--I mean, I just found out that Susan who works with me is a lesbian.

And then the video cuts to Susan in an interview setting. She has overheard all of these inappropriate gay comments. Susan is not happy. She is an angry lesbian. Susan is wearing a plaid work shirt, no makeup. She talks in a deep voice and her curly hair is pulled back in a lazy unwashed fashion. If I could've seen it, I'm sure her hair was tied back with twine and she was wearing calf-length socks that had lost their elasticity 2 years ago and hung around her ankles like hair scrunchies.

I accidentally guffawed, and since I was in the front for the movie (they were on a screen in the back of the room), I turned around to look at the "crowd" with a stupid grin on my face that said Oh, man, can you believe this guys! This is the most ironic thing in the world! And a bunch of straight mouths faced back at me.

And then I felt very conscious of my jeans and flipflops.