Rational and Irrational

"It must be Thursday; I never could get the hang of Thursdays."
-- Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Broadcast, BBC Radio

This semester, Tuesdays and Thursdays hold four-and-a-half hours of class. The progression is from the 18th century novel to Renaissance studies, with a break in between for lunch. Then I depart the 16th century and travel across the hall in one of our campus buildings to an hour-and-a-half of rationality -- the study of bio-ethics. This final class of the day is fascinating and frustrating, since it's not as familiar as reading and analysing English literature. My mentor keeps reminding me of two things, though: he says I'm a worrier, and therefore likely to doubt my own abilities, and it's my own fault, since I couldn't resist the chance to learn more about ethics, logic and their application to real world problems, like organ donation, cloning and dividing rationality from emotional judgements.
After all this, I usually stop at a local restaurant to buy a takeout order. Tonight, though, as I was walking out of the restaurant, the chef followed me to my car and started yelling at me after I got into the car. He pulled the door of the car open and accused me of ruining his work by shaking the carryout container and not carrying it properly.
I was more than surprised -- I was stunned into not being able to respond. I finally assured him that I hadn't ruined the dinner, but he wanted to see the carryout container, which I had already placed carefully in the trunk of my car.
The poor guy didn't seem at all rational. He whirled around and went back into the restaurant, and I drove home, after locking the car doors.
Of course, one irrational act breeds another, so I threw the dinner away when I got home. As a certified and recognized worrier, I had started wondering if the chef's tantrum was preceded by another irrational act somehow involving my dinner.
From now on, I think I'll buy a sandwich at school for my dinners on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or find a frozen dinner in my freezer. It seems like the rational thing to do.