Brewster Rockit by Tim Rickard for January 27, 2018

Either that or he ate too many McDonald’s French fries.

I had that exact thing happen to me in my college chemistry class (except for the melting part, of course). The work benches were wide enough that people could work on both sides, and there were sinks in the middle. We were heating something or other in test tubes to precipitate a white solid. The student across the table finished and started to clean up. He ran water into his still hot test tube. It flashed into steam and sprayed the contents of the test tube all over me. Luckily, 1) the white solid was in fact salt, and 2) we were all wearing safety glasses. That was 40+ years ago, and it’s still very clear in my mind.

Should be sodium and chlorine though.

I bet a lot of salty language was exchanged….

and the meaning was crystal clear.

The teacher lost face.

“Anybody seen my carrot – or coal, for that matter?”

Using sign language, of course.

That must hurt, I bet he snow bawled.

There was water everywhere, it was horrible.

“Whoa man, what a rush!”

Using the eye wash station probably didn’t help.

My most notorious incident involved powdered magnesium and hydrochloric acid. They did eventually replace the destroyed ceiling tiles.

It wasn’t nearly as delicious as the accident with the raspberry syrup and the paper cup.

My high school chem teacher used to tell us he blew up the top floor of the chem lab at university. I later went to that uni and, sure enough, the top floor was a different kind of brick. I asked around and was told the story of this crazy student named Kent. Prof said ,”I heard he was a teacher now. I can’t imagine what kind do teacher he’d be.” The BEST kind! I now teach chemistry bc of him. Shoutout to Mr. K!

My high school chem teacher was amazed that the only thing that happened to the flask of pure alcohol I boiled was it boiled away gradually. And relieved. “This was alcohol, not water.” “Okay.” “You’re alive.” “Okay.”