Every job has its fair share of horror stories. Whether it’s a full time position or a temporary summer gig, almost everyone, including teachers, with a job has at least one good story. It is human nature to repress traumatic events; however, with a good attitude, these tales can become entertaining and even funny. Mishaps always make for an eventful trip down memory lane.

Mr. Jere Lantz, one of the musical instructors at BSM, has been around the world. Lantz has hours of amazing stories to tell, but one incident in China is the most memorable.

In 1995, while touring with the China Radio Symphony Orchestra in Beijing, Lantz was given a gift. “After the first rehearsal [the Beijing orchestra] gave a dinner in my honor. And at the dinner they were passing around all kinds of interesting Chinese things to eat and one of them was duck’s foot,” Lantz said.

Duck’s foot is outside of many people’s comfort zones, but Lantz knew it might offend the cooks and host if he turned the dish down. “It wasn’t very good, and I got so sick. But my wife didn’t get sick. I don’t think I’ve ever had stomach issues out of both ends as bad as I did on that vacation,” Lantz said.

Lantz recovered, but not before tarnishing his attendance record. “I had to postpone one rehearsal a day. That was the first time I ever missed a rehearsal for illness in my life so far,” Lantz said.

It isn’t always food poisoning that can ruin an otherwise smooth day at work. Ms. Roushar, a BSM science teacher, knows more than enough about how awful motion sickness can be. While Roushar attended the U of M, she worked at Valley Fair in the summer.

Most know Valley Fair as a place for fun, socializing, and spending way too much money on funnel cakes and corn dogs. But for the employees, Valley Fair is not nearly as enjoyable. “You’d be surprised the amount of vomit I cleaned up,” Roushar said.

Like snowflakes, each vomit clean up is different than the last, but some are more memorable than others. “One time on the Monster, someone threw up almost a whole hot dog, and it was stuck in between the seats,” Roushar said.

Although disgusting, the nasty scene wasn’t the real problem. “We were like, how are we going to get this thing out? So we had to take a stick off of a tree, and skew the hot dog because we couldn’t get it out of there,” Roushar said.

Freshmen Gabriel Bauer works on a Community Supported Agriculture farm, where he harvests vegetables, takes care of the animals, and clears and cuts logs. “I learned a lot about the composting process and about natural, organic farming,” Bauer said.

In addition to learning more about farming, Bauer has some unique stories with the animals on the farm. “One weird experience was [when] the horses that lived at the farm had somehow broken down the fence that separated them from the crops. No one noticed at first,” Bauer said.

Luckily, Bauer realized that the horses were missing, and brought them back to safety. “We found them grazing on some vegetables in the garden. We had to coax them back into their corral,” Bauer said.

Freshmen Lisa Moyneur has also had some bizarre animal-related experiences. While watching her neighbor’s cat, Sparky (who has his own room), Moyneur was instructed to give the cat eye drops and pet the cat for exactly fifteen minutes.

However, these seemingly simple tasks gave Moyneur a bit more trouble than was anticipated. “[When] I got into the house, I looked around for twenty minutes until I finally found him. He [was hiding] under the bed,” Moyneur said.

After finally getting him out from under the bed, Moyneur tried to give the cat his eye drops––a difficult task. “I put them in the first ear with no problem. [During] the second ear, the cat’s legs started kicking everywhere and he kicked me in the face,” Moyneur said Turning to her second task, Moyneur attempted to pet the cat for the appointed fifteen minutes. “I’m scared of this cat, so I [was] on the other side of the couch trying to pet him and he [bit] me twice and [hissed] at me,” Moyneur said.