The rules of shotgun are simple and finite. You can call shotgun when the car is in site, and the person to call shotgun first receives the seat next to the driver. There are precious few exceptions to the rule, all having to do with relationship to the driver: girlfriend, wife, and older sister. That’s it. I’ve grown up with these rules and live by them accordingly. Now, shotgun was not a huge deal here to begin with. What I mean by that is we would go outside to the van and nobody would call it. Noticing this, I decided that I should just get shotgun then if no one called it. The problem with this, of course, was that I had to call it to make sure I got it. This tactic aroused the attention of my classmates who thus began to realize that this seat was up for grabs. So, I accidentally made it a thing. This applies particularly to Oliver, who wants shotgun at all times just to spite me. The problem is, we have a lot of things going on in our loves and very few car rides. This results in no one remembering to call shotgun. They all forget. But I never forget. So, I almost always get it. Sure, I’ve been beat once or twice, but literally that’s it. I even give Oliver a chance sometimes. This morning I let him walk all the way up to the van before I called it. It’s not my fault he doesn’t remember. However, most the time, I call it before he’s even in site of the car, or if I just yell it faster than him. Today, I called it right as the van pulled up to the site. And thus you have learned the story of how I got upgraded to class one nemesis.
First off, Nick always drives the van and so none of the exceptions to shotgun apply to anyone we work with and he also always keeps tabs on who said it first just to maintain decorum and an air of justice. Therefore, it’s up for grabs. I only mention this because today it was raining and Heidi didn’t want to walk all the way to her car because it’s in a lot that’s kind of a hike away. I called shotgun, just as I do every other day. I get into the seat, close the door, and put my seatbelt on. Then Heidi taps on my door. I looked at her through the window, and she gave me a very stern look that Aunt Phyllis’ would have been proud of. I just continued to look at her. She put her hands on her hips all sassy like. So, with years of practice of keeping shotgun when someone is attempting to physically steal it from me, I opened the door just a crack, which wasn’t enough for her to gain purchase had she attempted to pull on it but enough for her to hear me. I said very quickly, “I called it first.” And I shut the door. She got into the back. Shelby: 1, Authority: 0. This success was not very long lasting because later in the day I very loudly called shotgun and, even tough there were probably 50 meters between us, I could see Heidi’s disapproving look and the shake of her head. Shelby: 1, Authority: 1.
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| How you feel when you know you're going to be digging in the rain. Or the heat. |
Today was an interesting day because it was supposed to start raining early on in the day. In fact, the weather application on my phone said that chances of thunderstorms were 100%, which, personally, I thought was kind of a bold move on the apps part. But they were apparently very certain. Anyway, with this in mind, I dressed in things that would dry quickly. The unfortunate aspect of this day was that, even though the temperature was only like 65 degrees, the humidity made it feel like 85. Awesome. I wore my raincoat. It was sticky. Now, the most important thing you have to understand about archaeology is that it’s uncomfortable. All the ways it can be done equal wishing you were cool, dry, or clean. It’s a heat advisory? Hard labor. Sweat makes mud. It’s raining like the dickens? Hard labor, rain makes mud. It’s really the perfect temperature? You’re still on your stomach digging four feet down and you knees hurt. Don’t get me wrong, I do love it. But sometimes it just seems like you shouldn’t be outside. Today was one of those days. And the coffee place was closed. So. There’s that.
We all piled into the van at eight all ready to go but also aware that the sky looked like it was really close to pooping on us. But we drive to the site anyway. And then turn around and drive right back because there is lighting. Now, you’d think this would be nice. Like, woohoo! No digging in the mud! But you’d be wrong because we are on a tie constraint and need to get our excavations done this week. Losing a day is kind of the worst. But we did things in the lab, relabeled some stuff, I did one of the maps I needed to get done, and I wrote up all the stuff for my chain of evidence project. Plus, we had a coffee break and a guest speaker for lunch.
Our guest speaker was different than the other ones we’ve had. His name was Robert Lewis, Supervisory Special Agent at the Federal Bureau of Investigations. He gave a really great tale about how evidence collection is important and the kinds of teams the FBI uses. He also talked about some of the cases he has personally worked on. It was really cool, especially when he started giving us insights for later applying to the FBI. Anyway, we then took him to see our sites because by then, the lightning had stopped and we were going to go dig since it was no longer pouring and now there was only aggressive condensation. This is when the first shotgun incident with Heidi occurred. Anyway, we got to the site and uncovered our skeleton. My team went first and we explained our whole projects and such. Success. The next team was the bioarchaeology team. Now here’s where things get a little bit sketchy. When they took their tarp off, a very large toad was revealed. I believe the technical term would be fatty fatty boom blatty. Anyway, Mr. Obesity started jumping around and not everyone saw him. Now, if you’re reading this, you probably know me well enough to know how I feel about toads. Anyway, of course I chased it. And he was heading for a shoe. Or, more accurately, he was on the ground and a shoe was heading for him. I took action, focused only on saving an innocent life. Unfortunately, this action involved pushing this shoe away so the toad was not flattened into a fat pancake. And when I say pushing, I really mean unkindly shoving. Even more unfortunately, the man I pushed was Robert Lewis, Supervisory Special Agent at the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Thus how I accidentally assaulted a senior FBI agent. So, after releasing Sir Jumbotron into the wild a safe distance from the site, I cautiously went over to Mr. Lewis and told him I was deeply sorry for my actions. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “All the matters is that the toad is safe.” And that’s how we became friends. Because it’s an absolutely true statement. Yes. Plus we had the same brand of rain jacket, so we had a clothing connection. And were twinsies.
We worked for the rest of the day in the field until it started to get all bad and lightning-y again, which was around 3:30. The only thing we really accomplished today was to remove the underwear from the victim, which was laying a level above the skeleton, so we could uncover the phalanges as well as the distal ends of both radii and the left ulna. We all wanted to stay and not lose time, but apparently the waiver we signed doesn’t include death by electrocution. All my stuff is wet, but I had on my awesome rain jacket, so I was good to go. This is when Heidi didn’t let me have shotgun. On the way back, we were all talking about what would happen if the van got stuck in the mud, and Heidi said we’d have to push. I immediately did what my instincts warranted, which was to nose goes that situation, which is a completely legitimate way of deciding things and has pretty much always worked the in the past. This is used when you wish to opt out of something and so put your finger on your nose indicating that you do not have to participate is said action. Generally, the last person to touch their nose is stuck with this activity. This was how I found out that Heidi doesn’t play by the rules of life.
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