Scientists Saved by Wallpaper Mural

Life can be pretty tough on these research stations. Plenty of times you don’t go outside for weeks on end and that can do something to a man. We’re not allowed alcohol anymore, not since Crazy Al pulled his own nose off and so we have to find other ways to stop ourselves coming apart when outside it’s forty below and morning isn’t due until May. It was on the last of these epic assignments when I hit upon the idea of brightening up the station rec room with a wallpaper mural.

Sure, the other guys thought maybe it wasn’t exactly, shall we say, very masculine to cover the whole south wall with an oversized cherry tree branch covered with pink blossom against an azure sky, but after two months of looking at the undigested food in Dave Owskikowski’s beard as he told us that great story about the seal for the sixteenth time, I didn’t care if it was masculine, feminine or anyhoo which-a-ways.

The agency was a little reluctant to spring for eight rolls of bespoke digitally printed non-repeating patterned paper and suggested maybe a nice picture of a momma polar bear and cubs going through some trash instead, but even they could see that in the long term it was gonna be a whole lot cheaper than replacing some very expensive satellite phones thrown with all my might at the supply helicopter.

The effect on our lonely life here at Snow Station Tapir has been dramatic. Dave shaved for one thing, the chinese guy stopped crying all the time and Buzz Collins now only rocks backwards and forwards on his haunches if you forget to give him the blue mug. On Thursdays we dress for dinner (seal) and on Saturday afternoons after we’ve taken the ice measurements (yup, still there) we play deck quoits in Maintenance Bay D.

We were recently paid a visit by our Norwegian counterparts who evidently wanted to make sure it was really really cold where we were too. They were obviously looking for an excuse to get out of their drab collection of huts for just a little while and it was truly gratifying to see their little Norse faces light up when they saw our cherry blossom wallpaper mural – not a few tears were shed in delight at this little glimpse of spring and warmth when surrounded by so much frigid death. I was very happy to point them in the direction of the online webstore I had gotten ours from and we all sat down to a hearty meal of something that wasn’t seal.