Of course, that was completely intentional

Today we did physical exams of lab animals. Mostly mice and rats. More rats than mice, actually. Lab mice are hateful little buggers and will try to bite you at every available opportunity. Right up there with budgies. Rats are adorable little cuddle monsters though. At least the ones at school are. There isn't a lot to a physical exam on a rat. Temperature, respiration and heart rate are all pretty much impossible to take. A lot of it is palpation and visual inspection.

The rat pooped on my classmate who went first. It landed on the table, luckily. No big deal, it comes with the territory! But that doesn't mean it was fun, so I was glad the rat got it out of his system, litterally. I took my turn, scooping him up and talking baby talk to him while I looked at his eyes, nose, ears... "Oh you are so COOOT! Look at your little nose, I could just cuddle you all day!" I plunk his butt on the table so I can hold him under the front legs with one hand and palpate his abdomen with the other. My hands are small, and I can't quite do it without using the table as a stabilizer. This turned out to be lucky.

Thirty second later, I noticed a puddle on the table.

As I'm finishing up my exam, the vet/professor comes over to see how we're doing and if we have any questions. "Wow, you got a urine sample, that's awesome!" He's kind of dead pan at the best of times, so I'm not sure if he's mocking me, so I laugh it off and hand the rat off to another classmate and go to wash my hands. The vet comes rushing back with a syringe to draw up the urine off the table, and asks us if we think it's normal looking. After a little session of Rat Pee for Dummies, he says, "Good job on the urine." Again, not sure if he's kidding, I replied "Oh, yeah, I totally meant to do that" in my best sarcastic voice to show I'm completely joking. "No, really, it's good. Usually they just pee on you. Well done for not getting wet!"

Yep. Today I got an A+ in Not Getting Peed On 101. It's a required course in vet school. It's 5% reflexes, 10% knowing animal body language, and 85% luck.