Fleas, What the!?!?!?

Prior to my new clinical research job, I used to work as a shift manager at my previous place of employment - a third-party clinical research organization.  Basically, it was a place where college students (and dregs of society) came to sell their body to science for obscene amounts of money.

As the shift manager, I was expected to know and perform all job functions of all employees that I was supervising, and be a baby-sitter - both for the workers and the study participants.  Never-ending was I telling staff to stay off the internet while they were supposed to be working, or telling the research subjects that they could not hook up their XBox to the big-screen tvs and hog them for hours on end.  And of course, telling the subjects they could not look at porn on the public-use computers.  Holy Shit!!

One study we had required the subjects to wear shower and change into scrubs, and provide a urine sample.  When this lady finished the gamut of tasks, we discovered little bugs floating in the urine sample.  Yummy.  I went and got a research nurse, and she took a second look.

Here's what we saw floating in a cool whip tub of urine (though many more than just one):

Nurse Alice looked at me and told me that she thought they were fleas.  Well, I suppose it's better than crabs, but still.  Fleas!!??? What the fuck? How does someone get fleas and not know about it?  Alice wanted me to tell her, to which I replied "Hell No, that's way above my pay grade!"

She reluctantly did, and then we proceeded to put her trash bag of belongings into the -80C (read: hella cold) for the next week or so.  The cleaning crew had to go into the bunk area and put clean sheets on her bunk area.

We found out that flea lady took care of stray cats in her garage, and apparently she cuddled them and acquired fleas that way.  Yippee.  I don't care where she got them, she had to feel them and be itchy.

After work, you bet I went to PetCo, picked up some anti-flea shampoo, went home and took an extra-long shower using the shampoo as shampoo, face wash, and body soap a couple times.  Fuck getting fleas in my house.  I'd be pissed if my dog caught fleas from me.  I'm sure he would have been pissed at me too.

Have a great day!