Before I made the questionable decision to get a BA in English and then spend my 20s dressing up like furniture and mincing about for a living, I always kind of thought I wanted to be a zoologist. I was SERIOUS about this. I used to get the National Wildlife Foundation magazine as a kid, and my room was decorated in leopard print (hey, it was the ’90s). I probably had this interest because, growing up in Chicago, I was surrounded by world-class institutions that spread a conservation message–the Lincoln Park and Brookfield zoos, the Shedd Aquarium, and the Field Museum–and my mom and dad made sure we got to experience them. The Field was probably my favorite. Every time my parents discussed taking a trip downtown, I think I asked to go see the dinosaur bones.
When I got to high school, I discovered that a lot of sciencing involved complicated math, and I was not a fan of this, but it did not deter me from the dream of being the next Steve Irwin or something.
I’ll tell you what did, though.
In the summer of 1998, as I was wrapping up my freshman year of high school, my biology teacher informed the class that the Field Museum was looking for high school students to do field work in their summer internship program.
Field work?!
I freaked out. Not gonna lie, I was picturing myself spending the summer digging up dinosaur bones.
I put in an application, and the Field Museum chose me to come downtown and interview for the job. I freaked out some more, and one Saturday, I dressed up as professionally as I could, and my mom drove me down to the Field campus for my interview. My interviewers–real scientists!–met me in the lobby in front of the ticket booth, and my interview began.
…And by, ‘my interview began’, I mean, my interview began with a tour of the off-exhibit areas. In 1998, this meant I got to go INSIDE the preparation lab where they were working on removing Sue the T-Rex’s skeleton from the surrounding rock. I was in heaven. Then they showed me part of the off-exhibit animal specimen collection–cases and cases of preserved butterflies.
I should have realized that this was a sign of things to come.
After indulging me in a tour of a bunch of things the average visitor doesn’t get to see, I was brought to one of the lab rooms. This is where the scientists announced that the focus of this summer’s field research was insects. “Would you be interested in that?” The scientists asked.
Insects?
That was not what I expected.
It’s fine, I told myself. How bad could it be? It was for the FIELD MUSEUM.
“Sure,” I replied, smiling politely.
One of the scientists left the room, while the other made small talk about the general scope of the summer field work project.
The other scientist returned a few moments later carrying the largest cockroach I have ever seen.
“This is the Central American Giant Cave Cockroach,” he said.
Now, I’m not the sort of person who is too terrified by bugs. Later in life, I would develop something of a reputation for being fearless in the face of insects. I’ve done entire performances with a cockroach in my costume with me. (The show must go on!)
But this? Fifteen-year-old me was not prepared for this. Fifteen-year-old me was already running on dream-job-interview nerves; the introduction of a regular-sized bug wouldn’t have been well-received. A cockroach the size of the palm of my hand? Nuh-uh.
“Ah,” I replied politely. I was careful to keep the smile on my face, otherwise they would think that I was lying about being interested in insects because I just wanted to work at the dinosaur museum.
I could not let on that I was actually only feigning an interest in insects so that I could work at the dinosaur museum.
“Would you like to hold it?” The scientist asked.
Not really, no, I thought.
“Sure,” I said, trying desperately to keep the smile plastered on my face.
Watching me carefully, the scientist placed the giant insect in my shaking hand. This is fine, I told myself.
But in fact, my hand was shaking so badly that I immediately dropped the cockroach.
Horrified, I stooped down to pick it up, but I hesitated. I couldn’t actually tell where would be a good place to grip it. And its wings looked really…fragile and papery. I made my best guess as to how to grab it, stood up with the cockroach in my hand, and immediately dropped it again.
“Let me just get that this time,” the scientist instructed me.
I did not get the job.
So there you have it, folks. The butterfly effect in action. Because I failed at surprise cockroach holding during a job interview, I had no resume-building sciency internship credit to set me down a more scholarly path, and instead I wound up working in places where they store creepy paintings in my broom closet of an office or my coworkers set their nipples on fire.
Laura Writes 
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