The Existence of a Blue Smurf

Remember the Smurfs? They were these cartoon characters from back in the 1980's I do believe. I never did care for them. Sorry to those who like them. It wasn't because they were blue, I think I just could not get past their weird gnome-like appearance. I guess I just wasn't your typical little girl growing up. I had/have nothing against these characters, just never could get into them.

Anyhow, it would seem that today our lab found evidence for the existence of a Blue Smurf.

Thomas, is one of our researchers in the lab that comes in at ungodly hours in the morning. He must be part farmer or something. No matter how early I have managed to come into the lab on various, but not many days (I am a night owl), he is always here. I once worked in a methadone clinic as a therapist and I had to be at work by 5 am which meant that I had to be awake no latter than 4 am. But I digress here...

Suffice it to say, that today, was no exception. Thomas came in bright and early at 6 am eager and ready to start his day.

He decides that the best way to start his day would be to disinfect/clean a water bath for his tissue culture.

So, he proceeds to scrub out his water bath and decides to use this new disinfectant which is highly concentrated and viscous. You only need 2 mL of this stuff per litre.

He decides that while he is walking down our hallway to pour the disinfectant into a large glass cylinder. Since this bottle holding the disinfectant was a squeeze bottle, he squeezes it. But he squeezes very hard because it is very viscous.

However, for reasons unknown, the nozzle on the bottle is loose. So, when he squeezes hard, a great deal of this blue solution comes projecting out into the glass cylinder. It came projecting out with great force. Into the glass cylinder and everywhere else for that matter. This had the effect of completely splattering him, our -80 freezers, various centrifuges, chairs, and pretty much the entire hallway in blue splatter. I think it could have looked like a crime scene had the solution been red.

Another thing about this disinfectant is that it is very slippery. So, after his blue disinfectant "explosion", he decides to try to make it to a nearby sink to clean himself up. He slips. He falls. He falls into the blue muck. The large glass cylinder holding the blue disinfectant solution is catapulted into the air, eventually landing and breaking, and splattering more blue droplets on the rest of the hallway that was not previously covered. More centrifuges, more -80 freezers, and other assorted instruments are covered. To say that it looked like a blue explosion had taken place is putting it mildly.

So, now he is dripping in blue and sitting in a blue puddle. He has turned into the human equivalent of a blue "Smurf". Dripping from head to toe in blue. He is indignant and in disbelief. Just about covered from head to toe in blue. And sitting in it no less. He sits there for a few minutes trying to comprehend and process what has just happened.

He spends 2.5 hours cleaning our hallway, our -80 freezers, our centrifuges, and himself. He swears in German during the process. The whole process. I always did want to learn German, but not this way...

So, at least for today, I have found the existence of a blue Smurf.

Fortunately, no one was hurt. Thomas did suffer some very mild chemical burns from this solution. He showed me some of the burns. I am not even going to ask him how his bum is doing considering that he was sitting in the solution...

Thanks Thomas, for letting me post this as well as making me laugh. I have not laughed this hard and this long for over a year. Although I really do wish you would have let me put a picture along with this post...