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July 24, 2007
OMG Contaminated Shoes
This is me at work:
Last Friday we received an expected package with some broken insturmentation inside which was leaking a wee bit 'o mercury all over the place. The recipients of the package came to our office to pick it up, and sorta dribbled the shiny stuff all the way down to their lab. When I heard the words "mercury spill" I got the frack outta there in a flash.
Wasn't Kurt Russell a total hottie back in 1983?
OMG Cher. I'm not brain damaged from the mercury, it's just Gay Attention-Deficit Disorder (Gay-D.D.).
Anyway, they finally get around to testing for the stuff today, and the sandals I wore are Hg-positive! I'm gonna get all Karen Silkwood on their asses! My shoes emit 0.072 mg/m3 particles of mercury into the surrounding atmosphere. Not enough to kill anyone, but it was recommended that I put the sandals and the bag I carried them in on the roof to bake in the sun and blow in the wind for a while until the substance sublimates away. I should be fine, but now I'm socially contaminated because I have to wear my old pair of Tevas. Some would say I'm worse off now than if I were wearing my newer, but chemically contaminated pair of sandals.
Posted by jimbo at July 24, 2007 11:52 AM
Comments
Oh, a little Mercury never hurt anyone! Well, almost no one.
Mercury when spilled tends to bead up and go everywhere.
So, as a joke in college chemistry, a friend switched a container of mercury with BBs (The professor didn't have the best eyesight). Hen then proceeded to 'accidentally' spill about 0.5kg of mercury all over the place. The poor old prof nearly had a stroke.
Posted by: Chemistry Lad at July 24, 2007 1:48 PM
In my seventh grade science class the teacher poured mercury in our hands and we played with it.
Posted by: homer at July 24, 2007 2:42 PM
Holy Mercury Mackerel Jimbo! Yikes. By the way - that rendition of Amazing Grace in Silkwood is something that stays with you ...
Posted by: Michele at July 24, 2007 2:55 PM
I'm remined of the time in grad school when I got a vial of 32P-ATP. It's shipped frozen. Apparently the dispenser had malfunctioned and had sprayed the stuff on the outside of the vial where it froze. Glad I was wearing gloves that day- what a (radioactive) mess.
Nice periodic table. You don't see the lanthanide series incorporated into the rest of the table very often.
Posted by: DougT at July 24, 2007 3:46 PM
When I worked in the lab I got radioactivity on my fave shoes and had to leave them in a bunker for two months while the radioactivity went down (thank god it was P32 with a short half life). I'd say this is a perfect excuse to go get a new pair of sandals...
Posted by: Gay Canuck in the Capital at July 24, 2007 4:13 PM
Kurt Russell back then - YUM. Didn't he appear shirtless in that movie with his jeans unbuttoned so only the top few teeth of the zipper held them up??
I'd have taken a few RADs for him, any day.
Posted by: Jim (The Canuck One) at July 24, 2007 5:08 PM
I remember the good ol' P32 days - We had one guy in lab who dribbled some on the floor, stepped in it, and then walked all over the lab. It was like radioactive bread crumbs that one could follow with the geiger counter. The mercury in your flurorescent bulbs (as vapor) or eating mercury laden crabs from the Cheasapeake is more dangerous than quicksilver!
Posted by: Martini at July 24, 2007 7:10 PM
Let us (me) know if you need to be scrubbed down. And I did hear about the mercury mishap on the news over the weekend.
Posted by: diamondfistwerny (Steve) at July 24, 2007 9:29 PM
Clearly the universe is saying your Tevas are just fine, and it will attempt to destroy any replacement. Do not tempt it, next time it might be plutonium.
Posted by: copperred at July 25, 2007 9:32 AM
So, ok, was this mercury spill before Blowoff (where my husband Jim said you were kind of flirting with him -- which he enjoyed, btw)? I mean, so am I now at risk for a 3-way-spill-by-proxy contamination issue?
Posted by: Andrew at July 25, 2007 9:35 AM
I love mercury, its so flippin' cool! Liquid metal. Awesome.
We used to play with it in chem class...
Posted by: cb at July 25, 2007 9:54 AM
You feel socially contaminated only now? It's taken this long?
Posted by: Another Andrew at July 25, 2007 2:40 PM
Mercury is actually much worse if you breathe it than swallow it. Whenever it spills the worst thing you can do is vacuum it up. You can actually buy it on the street to wear in little amulets they sell in those little Mexican bodegas because some cultures mistakenly believe it has healing properties. Other cultures (including our own) mistakenly believe it causes autism. But it just makes you crazy. The Mad Hatter had mercury poisoning. I love me some periodic table toxicology!!
Posted by: otterdoc at July 25, 2007 10:42 PM
I can remember in my high school chemistry class the teacher passing around a vial of mercury for us to stick our fingers into or pour a little bit into our palms to show us how heavy it was.
Posted by: Donald at July 27, 2007 6:28 AM