I am the most dangerous person you know

So, this summer I am doing chemistry research at Furman University with my favorite professor, Dr. Thomas. We are doing surface chemistry, using a gas chromatograph to examine the interactions between various gases and a graphite surface. This research is funded by the good people at the Odor Institute at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. That doesn't mean much, except that I get a paycheck, and in return, I look at smelly gases.

So--we are working with thiols this summer. Thiols are, for your information, the kings of smelly gases. They are sulfur compounds which, as you may know, smell horrid. They have a detection rate of something like 3 parts per million. Ie. If there are three microliters of a thiol in your presence, you know.

Interestingly enough, thiols are also the component of natural gas that makes it smell like gas [the thiols, in that context, are referred to as "mercaptans" which I found out from a nice man who came to examine a gas leak]. So--thiols can save your life by saying to you, "Hey, there's gas here! Don't light that cigarette!" Also interestingly enough, there was a gas leak in my building [Plyler Hall] last week.

Today, I was working dilligently, putting my thiols into flasks. This takes a good deal of shit, actually, due to their low detection rate. Last week, I was doing it, and seven different people visited to ask if I a)there was another gas leak and b)if I was working with thiols. As a result, I being as cautious as a teenager feeling up his girlfriend in his bedroom while his parents were at home [unless, of course, that teenager is Joey, at which point that simile completely breaks down]. I had the hood open a insignificant two inches, underneath which I had jammed my arms up to the elbow. I had a beaker of Chlorox for each thiol: I would open the thiol, pipet up the thiol and hold it over the Chlorox, drop some into the flask, close the flask, drop the pipet into the Chlorox, and parafilm over the cap of the thiol. Wash, rinse, repeat.

While I was doing this, I got the requisite visits from people down the hall, asking if I was working with thiols. Yes, I replied, though I couldn't smell it in the lab. They admitted that they, as well, could not smell it. So, after filling the flasks, I ran immediately to the sink and washed my hands thoroughly with soap. Smelling fresh and clean, I wandered back to the hood. I had a compound, Methyl Sulfide, which needed to be refrigerated, but I was worried about carrying it down the hallway for fear a riot would be started. Thiol! Smell! Oh no!

So, I was debating to myself how I was going to do it [Should I wrap it in something? Carry it while running down the hall screaming "SULFUR COMPOUND COMIN' THROUGH?"] when a very polite fire fighter ran in the lab and said "Please leave the building, ma'am." So, grumble, grumble, shuffle, shuffle, I headed outside to join everyone else in the building who was standing around.

Word was that an actual gas leak had occured--sounded serious. Firefighters running in and out of the building with meters to check shit out, not letting anyone in [except for Dr. Knight, who probably froze them with his freezy eyes until they let him in--because the captain goes down with the ship, dammit!]. And we stood outside. Stood outside. Stood outside.

After an hour and a half of standing outside, everyone started trickling off for a long lunch. Some people snuck inside to get their stuff, but I knew that I wasn't that wily [as my firefighter had not said "Grab your shit and please leave the building ma'am," my shit was all still inside, wallet cellphone and all]. I remembered damned methyl sulfide, needing to be refrigerated, and sitting inside the hood. Volatile liquids with the caps on can blow said caps, and the blowing of methyl sulfide would be something closely akin to Chernobyl. Or, you know, my lab would have smelled for a length of time somewhere upward of forever.

So, Dr. Thomas and I went and explained the situation to the firefighters, and they let us in [with an escort] so I could put my Methyl Sulfide in the refrigerator and [to their not-knowledge] grab my stuff.

And I left to take a long lunch with Joey and Matthew, which sounded good to me.

After lunch, I returned. And guess what kids? It wasn't a gas leak--it was jenny and her thiols of doom. Apparently, the hood was working fan-fucking-tabulous [which is why I couldn't smell thiols], but up on the roof, where the hoods pipe out, there was a different story. The "out" pipe was too close to the "in" pipe, and the wind was blowing in such a way that it was perfect for my thiols to be pumped right back into the building. Right back into Dr. Knight's office!

So--Furman University, Plyler Hall--you just got punk'd.