Top Ten Things To Do When You're Bored in Lab

(Originally published in the MIT Tech.)

For two weeks, I was chained to an irGCMS (isotope ratio gas chromatograph mass spectrometer) for the sake of my research on ancient plant biomolecules. It's an important machine, being both very expensive and very temperamental. In fact, I leave offerings to appease it. I have even considered sacrificing a fattened UROP on its altar. Luckily for them, it's never gotten quite that bad.

Even when the machine is running beautifully, there are times when a graduate student such as myself must commit an entire night to its operation. This being MIT, I can't imagine that I, or shall I say organic geochemists in general, are the only ones who find themselves in this position. All across this campus, every night, there is a fellowship of the truly committed, tending to their tasks like priestesses to a shrine.

But while waiting for things to evaporate, grow, mix, run, react, sublimate, die, condense, boil, compress, explode, or otherwise alter its state, one gets bored. I sure got bored. In the cold morning hours when my synapses were still reasonably active, I started compiling a list: Things to Pass the Time during an All-Nighter in Lab.

1.) Assemble differently shaped glassware and stage a soap opera. Mr. Eppendorf is in love with Ms. Erlenmeyer, but Ms. Pipette is a lesbian who steals Ms. Erlenmeyer's heart. Make them fight. Then stage hot beaker-on-beaker action.

2.) Go to the bathroom and put on only a lab coat and safety glasses. Go back to the lab and expose yourself to inanimate objects with a great big swish. Continue until you have flashed everything in the lab.

3.) If you work in a lab with mice, cut one's head off and leave it on your advisor's desk a la "The Godfather."

4.) Place the trashcan against the far wall. Wad up scrap paper and aim. Make up gigantic imaginary stakes for each shot, like "With this basket I will single-handedly halt global warming" or "If I make this, bunnies everywhere will be safe and happy forever."

5.) Turn up the suction in your fume hood to maximum. Spray a snot rocket into it and see if it gets sucked up. Extra bonus points if you find where it landed outside.

6.) Go to the bathroom and pee with the stall door open. If you feel moved, sing "peace is flowing like a river" at the top of your lungs. If your bathroom has facilities intended for the opposite sex, don't be afraid to experiment with them. If you're male, dig up a quarter and buy a tampon. Carve it into an animal shape and, presto, you have your very own foam toy to play with in the sink! If you're female, construct a funnel out of construction paper and Scotch tape. Decorate it with Sharpies for an added flair. Try using it to pee into a urinal. (I tried this when I was four. It was hard.)

7.) Around 4 AM, you might get hungry. Go up onto the roof of your building and hunt pigeons with a metal spatula. When you have felled your beast, pluck it, skin it, and roast it. Use a Bunsen burner. Season with instant coffee crystals from the lounge.

8.) Extract some of your toe jam and deposit into a sample vial. Suspend it in solvent, preferably DMSO, because God knows what's in your toe jam. Run it through the machine and analyze the results. Later, present the data under a clever anagram like MAJETO. Submit it to Nature.

9.) Assemble a flashlight and a mirror. If your significant other happens to be living in Tang, Eastgate, or another line-of-sight residence, call him and wake him up. Promise to make it "worth his while"? When he comes to the window, initiate Morse sex. Unless you're very lucky, this will take longer than regular sex.

10.) Convince the night custodian to play Hide-and-Seek with you. When this gets old, pry open the old stack of cards that's been lying in the coffee cabinet, and play War. Continue until one of you loses or feigns death (whichever comes first).

11.) If you've gotten this far, you definitely deserve a nap. Happy dreaming!