I almost lit my laboratory on fire on Tuesday. Well, that may be an exaggeration. I was plugging in my extension cord to power the lights in my work-tent. The plug has been deteriorating, sometimes refusing to work. This time as I jiggled the wire hoping for a circuit, it made a loud sparkly pop. It didn’t hurt me, except for my pride as the entire lab turned to see what I was up to. Carlos, one of my supervisors, put down the phone with a quick “I’ll call you back” so he could help me get another cord.
Today I was carrying my box of stuff in from the work-tent as usual when I was distracted by a interactive CD-ROM (they were big in the mid-90’s) on bioarchaeology that was playing on a computer in the lab. I hit my elbow on the door frame and dropped the box, nearly spilling all of my stuff on the ground. Sigh.