It’s clear that I spend too much time in the laboratory. The INTERIOR laboratory that has no windows. That’s full of expensive equipment that make lots of noises (including the one that goes ‘ping’).
I should have known I was in trouble when I first started naming things. It was innocent enough at first. Specky is what I call the mass spectrometer. “Now Specky! You do as you’re told.” Bzzz-zzz-zzzt. “Or not…”
We had some issues with the fume hood at one point. I got tired of always having to clarify that I’m talking about the fume hood, not the laminar flow hood. Blah, blah, blah. It helped when I just started calling the fume hood Josie, and the laminar flow hood Tina. “Put the samples in Tina when you’re done with the pretreatments.” Yeah, that can be misunderstood.
Then we got the water analyzer. Its name arose pretty quickly. It’s obviously a ‘special’ instrument, because when it’s running well, it says it’s own name over and over: Norm. Norm-norm-norm. Once in a while it gets upset and has a ‘hiso’ fit. Kind of a brat, really.
The elemental analyzer (which we’ve had for eight years) just got a name: Iago. I was so excited, I had to tweet about it. I think I started to realize that something was wrong with me at about that time.
I knew I was in trouble the day I most concernedly tweeted about poor Norm. Yup, he needs a valve replacement. You know (now) that Norm is a piece of instrumentation in the laboratory. But when you tweet about poor Norm and the valve replacement he needs ASAP, it doesn’t sound like that, does it?
Yeah.
Well, here’s to your good health, Norm. May your valve replacement surgery go well!
Penny Higgins - Storyteller • Artist • Scientist 