Naked shower in the Chem. Building hallway day

Sigh.

It’s one of those days. The days that really really make you wonder why you got up.

Okay. SO I pulled a ultra-genius event today.

I am working with the heavy metal cadmium in lab.

Atomic mass: 112.41
Species: CdAc2

Everybody, meet cadmium. Now go kick it in the ass.

I was using a plastic syringe to filter a cadmium solution and i was pushing a BIIT too hard. The syringe tip twisted then broke off. (And you know, it couldn’t have been a clean break cause that would have make things too easy.) The what-used-to-be tip os now a pinched hole. High pressure + pinched hole -> instant spray.

BUT WAIT. Super genius ted breaks the tip so that the spray is on Ted.

Instant high pressure spray of cadmium on ted. Superb. Fast forward to then. I’m sitting in lab going “…oh… SHIT”. My grad student who was until then talking with a post-doc about super-genius (the real kind) ideas stops and just looks at me. I’m sitting there with eyes darting all around me to see where the cadmium’s landed and wishing desperately I could shake myself off like a dog.

A second passes.

I (in what may have been the ONE smart thing i’ve done today) spring up and run to the sink before my skin soaks up any more brain-cell popping cadmium. But see normally you’re supposed to strip down to your birthday suit and take a nice 10 minute shower in the hallway. (Posing for anyone that saunters pass. Accepting dollar bills with your teeth….) Grin. I guess the saving grace is that my grad student doesn’t care about me. A “Make sure you wash thoroughly” gets tossed my way as I’m busy wondering how many layers of skin I can scrub through without exploding like a water balloon pricked by a needle.

After I finish up, my shirt still has cadmium solution all over it and I mumble “I’ll change it when I get home”

What happens when Ted gets home? You know.. lie down on the floor.. roll over a few times.. collect money from roommates.. lose paycheck… roar at the world… find paycheck.. deposit paycheck.. get food.. eat food.. talk with people online… shortly afterwards I yell “OH HOLY FUCK I NEED TO CHANGE” and realize that I’ve been sitting in a cadmium stained shirt for oh…. 4 hours.

It’s a bad day to be Ted.