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eponymous_roseOkay, what is it with fire and smoke and explosions and CHEMICAL INHALATION and things that seems to be following me around over the last few months?
ME: *watching the latest Sarah Jane Adventures working on a project*
DOWNSTAIRS: OMINOUS CRASH/BANG/SHRIEK
ME: If I ignore this, surely it'll go away?
DOWNSTAIRS: MORE OMINOUS SILENCE
DOOR: STILL MORE OMINOUS TIMID KNOCK
ROOMMATE: *rushes in and slams the door behind her* Hey!
ME: Um. Hey?
ROOMMATE: Say. You wouldn't happen to know... do we have any gas masks in the house?
ME: I... don't think that's ever come up.
ROOMMATE: Oh. *beat* Do you know the number for poison control?
So here is the thing: roommate was heating one of those reheatable crystal thingies that you just boil for "at least ten minutes" and then you're nice and warm and yay. Since she wanted to be nice and toasty, she decided that fifteen minutes was well within the "at least ten minutes" quoted on the little container. Which is a reasonable assumption!
So she set the timer for fifteen minutes, then went downstairs to find a bubbling cauldron of black and HUGE BILLOWING SMOKE and TOXIC FUMES and it rapidly spread throughout the house.
I burst out laughing. This is how I deal with stress. And then I made us both go and get wet washcloths and hold them over our mouths and noses before we ventured downstairs. It was like in those fire safety movies - it was almost impossible to see anything, so we stayed low to the ground and stumbled to the door. We cleared things up/ventilated the house as best we could (I recommended that we pour some water over the now-solid bubbly black mass in the pot so that there wouldn't be any more dust to get into the air and then into our respiratory tracts) and we made for the basement, where the air was still clear.
And then we did research! Turns out the crystals were probably sodium acetate (there was a strong vinegar-like smell in the air), which is a mild irritant in small doses. So yay! Coughing and a sore throat, just in time for my presentation tomorrow!
Nah. It could've been way worse. And anyway, fun times! No more 'sploding vans in sight - I was starting to get worried.
The ironic thing? Sarah Jane had just finished voiceovering something to the effect that you can have adventures right here on Earth, too! Thanks, SJS. At least, owing to all the sodium acetate in the air, my house is now Slitheen-proof.
EDIT: Oh, flippedydoodle. I didn't even think about our hyper-involved and paranoid landlords (the main reason I'm looking for a new place in January). There could be fireworks here. And flippin' politics. *grumbles*
ALSO EDIT: Dude. You can use sodium acetate to waterproof concrete. How sweet is that?
ME: *
DOWNSTAIRS: OMINOUS CRASH/BANG/SHRIEK
ME: If I ignore this, surely it'll go away?
DOWNSTAIRS: MORE OMINOUS SILENCE
DOOR: STILL MORE OMINOUS TIMID KNOCK
ROOMMATE: *rushes in and slams the door behind her* Hey!
ME: Um. Hey?
ROOMMATE: Say. You wouldn't happen to know... do we have any gas masks in the house?
ME: I... don't think that's ever come up.
ROOMMATE: Oh. *beat* Do you know the number for poison control?
So here is the thing: roommate was heating one of those reheatable crystal thingies that you just boil for "at least ten minutes" and then you're nice and warm and yay. Since she wanted to be nice and toasty, she decided that fifteen minutes was well within the "at least ten minutes" quoted on the little container. Which is a reasonable assumption!
So she set the timer for fifteen minutes, then went downstairs to find a bubbling cauldron of black and HUGE BILLOWING SMOKE and TOXIC FUMES and it rapidly spread throughout the house.
I burst out laughing. This is how I deal with stress. And then I made us both go and get wet washcloths and hold them over our mouths and noses before we ventured downstairs. It was like in those fire safety movies - it was almost impossible to see anything, so we stayed low to the ground and stumbled to the door. We cleared things up/ventilated the house as best we could (I recommended that we pour some water over the now-solid bubbly black mass in the pot so that there wouldn't be any more dust to get into the air and then into our respiratory tracts) and we made for the basement, where the air was still clear.
And then we did research! Turns out the crystals were probably sodium acetate (there was a strong vinegar-like smell in the air), which is a mild irritant in small doses. So yay! Coughing and a sore throat, just in time for my presentation tomorrow!
Nah. It could've been way worse. And anyway, fun times! No more 'sploding vans in sight - I was starting to get worried.
The ironic thing? Sarah Jane had just finished voiceovering something to the effect that you can have adventures right here on Earth, too! Thanks, SJS. At least, owing to all the sodium acetate in the air, my house is now Slitheen-proof.
EDIT: Oh, flippedydoodle. I didn't even think about our hyper-involved and paranoid landlords (the main reason I'm looking for a new place in January). There could be fireworks here. And flippin' politics. *grumbles*
ALSO EDIT: Dude. You can use sodium acetate to waterproof concrete. How sweet is that?
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 04:44 am (UTC)I hope your presentation goes ok. Don't feel bad. One day I was in the middle of a powerpoint lecture on skull bones and the university laptop I was using decided to get infected with a virus. So...as I started the lecture this blue warning flashes...me clueless going on and on about lovely skull bones until one of my students says, "ummmm..." and I look up and say "Well what's that?"
Student: "I think you've got a virus."
ME: "What!"
Another student: "Yeah..that happened to me last week."
Computer: ERROR>>> ERROR>>> COMPUTER WILL RESTART IN....
Another student: Yep that's a virus...
Me: Oh shit...shit...
Students: *chuckle*
Me: Well everyone go grab a skull we'll do this the old fashioned way.
Students: Cool...*she said shit*
Me: I'm damnably glad that's not *my* laptop.
Students: Yay!
At the end of the semester when they did evaluations...two of my students, gotta love em, complained about the "crappy, useless, slow" laptop their professor had to teach class with. :)
Good luck on your presentation tomorrow. You'll do fine. At least you're not with me in dissertation hell *cackling comes from the attic*. Oh and the states are in for some rather serve weather fronts this weekend complete with rain, snowstorms, and tornadoes! *more cackling from the roof* I say!
no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 05:01 am (UTC)*sends you cough drops*
Don't die, k?
no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 06:15 am (UTC)(And yay for you surviving this!)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 08:12 am (UTC)(Isn't Slitheen-proof-ness acetic acid- CH3COOH, and isn't sodium acetate NaCOOH, or am I staying up too late objectively explaining [ha] why the French Revolution was a revolution? Well, actually, sodium acetate might react with calcium as well. Or something. *sighs*)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 02:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 04:26 am (UTC)Hope dissertation hell is marginally less... hellish than usual! :)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 04:27 am (UTC)I will put that "don't die" on my to-do list. :D
no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 04:28 am (UTC)Love the icon! :D
no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 04:32 am (UTC)As far as I can tell *puts on Chem!geek glasses*, the acetate ion is CH3COO-, so sodium acetate would be NaCH3COO. Which is really fun to try and read phonetically. "Nache Coo?"
Um. Anyway. And I think the reaction with a Slitheen involves a reduction-oxidation reaction with the calcium. To form, I guess, Ca(CH3COO)2.
I don't know where I'm going with this. But it is skience! Trufax! :D
no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 04:33 am (UTC)*pause*
IT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING!
Wait. Well, maybe not. But that would be strangely amusing. ;)
So far, I don't think anyone's actually told the landlords. Hooray!
no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 04:34 am (UTC)And yay! Presentation went well! :D
no subject
Date: 2007-11-28 05:37 am (UTC)*facepalm* I knew that. Note to self: No chem after 10pm, especially on 5 hours of sleep. (Because then, I could have sworn that acetate was COOH-, and then be confused why acetic acid wasn't HCOOH. *rolleyes*)
I've always wondered why they asked those "Why was the French/Industrial/Technological Revolution a revolution?"
bitterly cynical{ Our IB teachers like to screw with our minds. }
After all, it's the discussion classes like "What makes a great leader?" that leave us frustratingly confused.
Aside: Today, the grade 10s- IB candidates- were clustered around the math room at lunch to write the math assessment challenge. We mocked them. Privately. It was fun. ("Run away while you still can!") Because, well. If this many of the (ostensibly) smartest kids in the school failed the trig final...ehh.