Cloning is fake

My electron micrograph of E.coli,
courtesy of Adobe Illustrator

I've been trying to clone a set of 9 genes for the last three months.  Three months.  Not only is this ridiculous and a waste of my time, it is frustrating and makes me angry.  I received the vector from the lab across the hall, performed my PCR and tried to pop that insert into the vector.  You would think easy-peasy, but not so...  Even my PI is getting frustrated with it, and she's not even doing the cloning.

I complained about this to one of my friends in a neighboring lab, and she joked that the solution is simple: "Cloning is fake. It's all made up in order to make you feel like a failure."

While both of us know full-well that cloning, indeed, is not fake, I am going to use this as my excuse for the meantime... at least while my vector refuses to digest, ligate, and replicate.

Is that so much to ask?

Update: Clones 1, 2, and 3 are complete (Yes!).  Now on to 4 and 5 and ...  Soooo close...