Triggers

This morning I thought I'd work on North Campus for a couple hours before heading to the Medical Center for the remainder of the day. The drab lighting and drone of the air conditioner at the Medical Center make the days over there run long, and I thought the change of scenery would do me some good.

So I've come to the Duderstadt Center which acts as a sort of library-on-steroids for North Campus where the University has sequestered its engineers and artists.

I'm sitting in Duderstadt's two-story foyer, a bright, airy space with lots of natural light and human activity. In one corner a coffee shop supplies the delicious brown to a continuous stream of people. The espresso maker heaves and haws like an asthmatic Aeolus.

The rest of the space is occupied by hexagonal tables where groups of students mull over projects during the school year. The year being over now, most of those tables are empty. Each has only its complement of atomically yellow plastic chairs which are amazingly comfortable on the rear. I'm parked at one of these tables now.

Behind me a glassed-in elevator shaft whirs away quietly. And behind the elevator shaft sits the information desk clerk who either (a) has the easiest job in the world or (b) acts as the guardian of all stored knowledge at the University. Depends on how you look at it.

The phone at the information desk just rang. It sounded like the buzzer from Family Feud.

[You might have thought I was going somewhere with that elaborate description of the Duderstadt Center, but I wasn't. I really just wanted to say that the phone sounded like the buzzer from Family Feud.]