...probe*

	I walked in, and three women were working in the office. One looked to be an under grad, the other two grad students or post-docs. The under grad summoned me to her desk, and began the process of final screening and registration to the study. Again, she was very plodding and exhaustive with her details. I alternately listened and drifted, occasionally listening also to the conversation to two post-docs were having.
	"cycle will be shifted a complete twelve hours. Here's a chart, showing the daily sleep and wake periods: Sleep is in gray.... windows will be blacked out with thick curtains, and we'll provide bright lights, although we can't pay for your electric bill, which will probably go up by %5... Yeah, her PI is really demanding. He has the researchers compete by giving them the same project... the last two days you'll be in the lab, taking a variety of tests and playing games. We are trying to understand the effect of sleep cycle changes on attention and judgment, for a variety of situations, like flight control tower operators... but the oil light keeps bilking every time I hit a bump... has been dramatically improved, so if you heard anything about it being uncomfortable, it's been changed, so it's very comfortable. You can hardly feel it."
	I was sitting unnaturally straight, and blinking, because I couldn't process what it was she had said would be hardly felt. I interrupted her, "I'm sorry... the anal..." "The anal probe." Pause. "No one told you about the anal probe?" She looked over to her colleagues, who had stopped their conversation and were looking over at us with misgiving written on their faces "No. Anal probe." forward