Chemistry...(what type of chemistry? ;D)

Yeah, so now that Dalziel’s adventure in Jr. High land are over, we can move forward a few years and meet up with him in High School. Namely his AP Chemistry class where is completing a lab practical… Actually… due to a complaint of a die-hard fan, I am now changing all names to something that flows better with the stories, seeing as all of the names I have been using are basically randomly random names, I will try to stick with either something I make up, or just a random other name…

Ok, never mind… I just spent like 5 minutes trying to think of a different name for our main character and could not think of on that is palatable by my standards, back to my random weird sounding names that are not palatable to some certain “white boys” and by “white boys” I mean Tommy Yan… yeah, that’s right, a real name just appeared on my blog! =O

So Dalziel found himself half-sleeping, half-awake in chemistry class as he often does. Not only was it chemistry class though, by far he enjoyed his chemistry class the most, but Dalziel could not find the strength in his body, namely his eyelids, to stay awake, he would survive through class as a zombie. He would never be fully awake unless something was especially exciting, but he would never be fully asleep, except for in elective classes that do not really matter.

So there was this one incident in which Dalziel found himself being wide awake. Often times under similar circumstances he would find himself wide awake and relatively active: Lab time. Dalziel thoroughly enjoyed lab very much. Not only was his lab bench an interesting bunch to talk to, but he enjoyed the actual chemistry labs despite their academic focus. He enjoyed mixing chemicals and obtaining many different products and especially those awesome colors that are oftentimes a result of a well-done lab experiment. Dalziel was typically quite normal in his chemistry labs, following the rules closely, but still leaving enough room for him to have fun. Not wasting his effort in achieving the perfect 5.0000000mL measurement as he knew from his experiences at his dad’s office that such a precise measurement would have little to no effect on his experiment.

But this one day, Dalziel found himself in a very odd situation… instead of loosely following the rules and safety conditions of the lab procedures; he was going completely against them. He was putting these potentially dangerous chemicals… INSIDE HIS MOUTH! But of course the estrogen-infested part of his lab bench was in protest of his highly unorthodox ways, but that did not stop him; Dalziel was feeling adventurous!

So the reason Dalziel was being completely unorthodox in his actions was because of the ridiculously complex vagueness of this particular experiment. The students were given a list of 15 potential chemicals they could receive. Of these 15 they would receive 10 and would have to properly label. Some of these candidates were NaCl – table salt, C₆H₁₂0₆ – glucose (sugar), and H₂O – water. These three candidates were obviously easily distinguished by taste which is why Dalziel found some unidentified liquids and solids near his mouth.

His first taste-test had been a very effective test. He had observed the different solids they had gotten, picked out one that looked like NaCl and cautiously poured out a few crystals onto his lab book. Then out of the blue, he quickly swooped down, like an owl to its prey, and sucked up the minute crystals as if he were a vacuum cleaner. To his half-expecting tongue, the taste of salt reached his tongue, shot up to his brain and registered on his tongue and from his life’s experience he immediately registered the taste as NaCl, common table salt. Thus, the lab group had identified its first salt within a matter of seconds with no chemicals involved other than the offending NaCl and the saliva which coated Dalziel’s tongue.

The next obvious tasting candidate was either water or glucose, as all of the solids had no resemblance to glucose, so either his lab group did not have glucose in their selection of 10, or it was in solution. Dalziel and his lab partner, Gamaliel, decided to take their chances and try to find either water or glucose by taste, but the complimentary lab group, which consists of those certain people who shall remain unnamed because I do not want to find more names, objected to these “stupid” boys risking their precious tongues in search of the wily water and glucose. So Dalziel and Gamaliel decided to sit back and relax for a little while as the girls conducted their highly precise, meticulous chemistry experiments.

Then something unexpected happened; one of the girls, Tallara, was fed up with the orthodox ways of living her chemistry lab life! She finally motioned for Dalziel and Gamaliel to work their taste-bud magic and find out what the chemicals were with a simple “Can you just… you know *motion towards mouth*…”

“Hells yes!” was the hearty reply. So now, the boys had to come to a decision, there were 5 liquids left, and the girls were having trouble with two of them, who would get which test tube. Whose tongue would potentially be scarred for life? Gamaliel took his chances 1^st, with a small dab of his pinky into the test tube; he acquired the liquid ready for taste-testing. He quickly stuck his tongue out and dabbed his tongue with the slightly moist finger.

“That is not water!” exclaimed Gamaliel as he darted towards the sink for water and a paper towel. Now came Dalziel’s turn to take a shot and become the pawn in the lab group’s quest in search of the devious water and sugar… He uncorked the test tube which he had chosen, placed his finger over the top and inverted the test tube so he could obtain some liquid. He then slowly stuck out his tongue and slowly moved his finger closer to his tongue. As the liquid reached the vicinity of his nose and he could not smell anything, Dalziel was slightly reassured that he had chosen wisely and would not be scarred for life. But little did he know that the chemical on his finger would NOT taste like water, and WOULD leave a dark brown mark where it came in contact with his skin.

“Ugh! Definitely not water!” Dalziel briskly walked over to the sink and paper towels just as Gamaliel had before him. He rinsed his mouth out over and over, but the offending taste would not be cleansed! It was as if someone had taken a crap inside of his mouth and had spent the time to wipe the feces all over the inside of this mouth so it would take a long time to clean out. Dalziel dejectedly walked to his lab bench, moist paper towel applied to his tongue in an attempt to mask the taste of poop in his mouth. Despite his attempts to overpower the taste, he could not do so without food on his hands. And seeing as how he had forgotten his lunch money at home, he could not purchase any vittles to clear the taste.

Dalziel tried to continue on with lab and hoped that the taste would slowly dissipate from his mouth, but 5 minutes later, he could taste the silver nitrate as if he had just put it on his tongue. So he looked around at the rest of his lab group and asked, “Anyone have food so I can get rid of this terrible, TERRIBLE, taste?”

And it’s late now, so Dalziel got a fiber bar from his lab group and he completed the lab without placing anything else near his mouth. Oh and by the way, he was luckier than Gamaliel who tastes HCl- Hydrochloric acid.