The year before I left for college, I worked at a veterinarian's office. There were two veterinarians that worked there, Dr. P, who was a very large and intimidating Hunagarian man who owned the practice, and Dr. G who was my neighbor and got me the job. One of the primary tasks I had while working at the vet was preparing stool and urine samples for the microscope. We had this book that had all the information on intestinal parasites. This book was the go-to resource if I saw anything strange under the microscope. This book was old with stained pages and was primarily held together with tape. One day, Dr. G. went to show me something in the parasite book, the binding completely fell apart, and the pages were catered all over the fecal-ridden microscope lab. Dr. G left this problem for me to fix while he went to see with patients.
I had to find a way to fix this book with supplies in a vets office without Dr. P finding out that Dr. G destroyed his book, while also running more stool samples, cleaning kennels, walking dogs, checking in patients, and whatever else I normally had to do. Once I had the pages of the parasite book in order, my solution to bind them was to use the needles we normally used for vaccinations to slowly drill through over 100 pages of this book and create a DIY three-hole-punch. It was a long and arduous process and I stabbed myself many times, but I managed to pull it off before Dr. P noticed that I or the sacred texts were missing. If I remember correctly, I think I twisted paper clips to make makeshift binder rings. I was later commended for “taking initiative” and repairing the book
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