I open wide our refrigerator door and start the stare, “Hmm, what to have today?” Okay, what’s the worst thing to be having at 8 in the morning?

“I usually get the Talking Rain. It’s the only thing in there good for you.”

“It’s all bad for you. Haven’t heard of dihydrogen monoxide?”

“What’s that?”

Wait for it.

“Is that H₂O₂?”

*double take*

“I don’t remember my chemistry.”

“Look it up. You’ll like it.”

[Another tiny story after the jump]

Toxic gasses

My junior year, I was a freshman physics lab TA. Since it wasn’t required anymore, nobody but the nutball experimentalists took the course. Having a theory guy as their lab TA is just another example of irony that follows you in that school.

A classmate of mine, who was a year ahead of me in coursework, was a sophomore physics lab TA. Sophomore physics lab was required for the physics majors at ‘tech (which explains why the school still turns out math majors). Whenever he had to explain the lab equipment, he’d warn people to avoid the liquid nitrogen bath because the fumes were “toxic.”

A number of sophomore, probably future theoreticians, believed him.

(And people say I’m a bad person.)

[tags]Dihydrogen Monoxide, water, health, liquid nitrogen, LN2, DHMO, H2O, experimentalist, theoretician, lab, physics, Caltech, teaching[/tags]