The Princess and the Pea

I work with a professor who claims to be a buddhist, but if he is, he is the Worst Buddhist Ever. Every time he's in office he's snorting and stomping and slamming like he's a one man version ofIonesco's Rhinocerous.

Anyway, his office and mine shared a common wall and his office shared a common wall with this other female professor, let's call her Belle. Belle was in her early thirties and had a habit of holding court with her female students. They would gather round and talk about make up tips and dating. Why the department didn't take issue with a professor acting like the cover of Cosmo I don't know. But it drove the Buddhist insane.

One day I was furiously trying to get work done and Belle is holding court and the Buddhist is ranting at some poor student in his office about how loud Belle is. The only thing is that his ranting was louder than her chatting. I tried to focus, I put on my earphones, but he was bellowing too loudly.

Finally, I marched around to his cubicle and said, "My aren't we a fragile little princess today? Fussy because we didn't get much sleep thanks to that pea?"