Chapter 8: In which our heroine is reminded to never leave home without her towel...
So I had an intersting day at work last night.
...I hate intersting days at work.
So it's about 5 AM and I'm casually strolling through the first floor labs like I do every night, when suddenly *splish*
"Splish?" I think to myself. "That's not a sound a floor is supposed to make..."
I look down and there is HUGE puddle on the floor. It's oddly shaped, but if it were a perfect circle, then it would be about 6 feet in diameter. HUGE.
Except it's not a perfect circle, is it? Oh no. It has completely covered the walkway, moved into the two adjacent bench areas, and is underneath lab carts, trashcans, and the table that some highly complicated apparatus is on.
So I call Ted, R&D Building Manager Supreme, and he says he'll be there in 20 minutes.
And I'm trying to locate the source of the leak, and it's obviously coming from this apparatus. I can't really describe it. It's a very large box with rubber hoses coming in and out of. A bunch of hoses. But I know that's where the leak is coming from, because the liquid is dripping off the table. Off the table, and...
...oh fuck, right onto the keyboard.
And then off the keyboard tray and onto a stool, and thence onwards to the floor. *sigh*
The keyboard's probably fucked no matter what I do, I'm sure the experiment was ruined as soon as Liquid X didn't make it from Point A to Point B in still-as-yet-unidentified Tube Y. And since the experiment's already fucked, maybe I should try and stop the flow of liquid at the source. I take a look at the machine, and there's no "Off" button. There is a "Pause" button though.
Sure, why not?
*push*
Nothing.
*pushpushpush*
Still nothing.
Fuck.
So I look for the spill kit, and the Special Blue Super-Absorbent Towels to try and do... something, I don't know. But maybe I can get the ball rolling on sopping up the mess on the floor. Of course it occurs to me after I've located the SBS-AT's that I don't know exactly what Liquid X is. I figure if it's hydrochloric acid or something they'd need more than rubber tubing, and the table and keyboard would be melted instead of just wet. But still...
Either way, I already stepped in it (oh fuck, did I just track it all over the lab? Fuck!), so I can spread the towels with my boot.
My brand new boots.
Gods, I hope this stuff isn't caustic.
So I get a couple towels placed on the floor, and one overtop the keyboard, because why not? And I'm delicately picking up the things on the desk that are still dry in an effort to locate this vagrant Tube Y, but seriously, it's like looking at a plate full of spaghetti and trying to trace the path of a single noodle. But our heroine is not one to give up easily, and through perseverance I was able to locate the rogue Tube Y.
MWA-ha! Victory is mine! Come here, you fucker, let's get you draining into a jar or someth--
Oh fuck, I got some on my hands.
Ah shit, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die, or melt like the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or get turned into a frog or something.
Fuck. I don't want to be a dead melty Nazi frog!
But now Ted's here and he says to go wash my hands, and I should be ok because all the warning labels have zeroes on them. Later I found out it was just a solution of 17% ethanol, which shouldn't even make my fingers tingle. Ted says he'll take care of the rest of the mess, and let the people whose stuff it was know that their experiment went kersploosh. And the guy whose stuff it was thanked me for calling the spill in. Umm, sure, no problem, that's my job. I mean, it wasn't like I was gonna go "Oh look, a large puddle of potentially hazardous chemicals on the floor *Do-dee-do*". But it was nice to get thanked.
Still, an intersting day at work.
...I hate intersting days at work.
...I hate intersting days at work.
So it's about 5 AM and I'm casually strolling through the first floor labs like I do every night, when suddenly *splish*
"Splish?" I think to myself. "That's not a sound a floor is supposed to make..."
I look down and there is HUGE puddle on the floor. It's oddly shaped, but if it were a perfect circle, then it would be about 6 feet in diameter. HUGE.
Except it's not a perfect circle, is it? Oh no. It has completely covered the walkway, moved into the two adjacent bench areas, and is underneath lab carts, trashcans, and the table that some highly complicated apparatus is on.
So I call Ted, R&D Building Manager Supreme, and he says he'll be there in 20 minutes.
And I'm trying to locate the source of the leak, and it's obviously coming from this apparatus. I can't really describe it. It's a very large box with rubber hoses coming in and out of. A bunch of hoses. But I know that's where the leak is coming from, because the liquid is dripping off the table. Off the table, and...
...oh fuck, right onto the keyboard.
And then off the keyboard tray and onto a stool, and thence onwards to the floor. *sigh*
The keyboard's probably fucked no matter what I do, I'm sure the experiment was ruined as soon as Liquid X didn't make it from Point A to Point B in still-as-yet-unidentified Tube Y. And since the experiment's already fucked, maybe I should try and stop the flow of liquid at the source. I take a look at the machine, and there's no "Off" button. There is a "Pause" button though.
Sure, why not?
*push*
Nothing.
*pushpushpush*
Still nothing.
Fuck.
So I look for the spill kit, and the Special Blue Super-Absorbent Towels to try and do... something, I don't know. But maybe I can get the ball rolling on sopping up the mess on the floor. Of course it occurs to me after I've located the SBS-AT's that I don't know exactly what Liquid X is. I figure if it's hydrochloric acid or something they'd need more than rubber tubing, and the table and keyboard would be melted instead of just wet. But still...
Either way, I already stepped in it (oh fuck, did I just track it all over the lab? Fuck!), so I can spread the towels with my boot.
My brand new boots.
Gods, I hope this stuff isn't caustic.
So I get a couple towels placed on the floor, and one overtop the keyboard, because why not? And I'm delicately picking up the things on the desk that are still dry in an effort to locate this vagrant Tube Y, but seriously, it's like looking at a plate full of spaghetti and trying to trace the path of a single noodle. But our heroine is not one to give up easily, and through perseverance I was able to locate the rogue Tube Y.
MWA-ha! Victory is mine! Come here, you fucker, let's get you draining into a jar or someth--
Oh fuck, I got some on my hands.
Ah shit, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die, or melt like the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or get turned into a frog or something.
Fuck. I don't want to be a dead melty Nazi frog!
But now Ted's here and he says to go wash my hands, and I should be ok because all the warning labels have zeroes on them. Later I found out it was just a solution of 17% ethanol, which shouldn't even make my fingers tingle. Ted says he'll take care of the rest of the mess, and let the people whose stuff it was know that their experiment went kersploosh. And the guy whose stuff it was thanked me for calling the spill in. Umm, sure, no problem, that's my job. I mean, it wasn't like I was gonna go "Oh look, a large puddle of potentially hazardous chemicals on the floor *Do-dee-do*". But it was nice to get thanked.
Still, an intersting day at work.
...I hate intersting days at work.