I Got Stabbed by a Cactus: and other adventures from bio lab

Our lab today was to extract DNA from either a strawberry or a banana. My three-person group chose a banana. Or, rather, two of us chose a banana, and our third member promptly squealed in indignation about not having been part of the decision. She then proceeded to chuck beakers filled with enzymes at us, which we somehow managed to catch. For convenience, let us call the sane member “Billy Bob Joe” and the insane member “Squee”. (This way, I don’t have to say “the sane member this” and “the insane member that”. It makes perfect sense. I promise.)

Anyway, the first step was to smash up the banana with a wooden thingy-mer-bobber. I clutched it one hand and destroyed that little banana, howling with the fierce joy of it. Billy Bob Joe exclaimed how wonderful it looked to eat, and Squee threatened the puke.

“How wonderful it looks to eat!” Billy Bob Joe exclaimed.

“I’m threatening to puke,” Squee threatened.

After that, I maniacally laughed as I poured it in the test tube, watching the odd mixture slide down the sides of the tube. We then proceeded to dump in all manner of items, such as enzymes and things like that. I’m not really sure if those were supposed to go in there, but let’s suppose they were. We were working under a tight time frame, okay?

The fun part came next! I went up to my Biology teacher and asked, “Where’s the ethanol?”

He pushed his ginormous glasses up his ginormous-er nose and ahem-ed quite loudly. “The ethanol you ask?” he mused. “Yes, yes, the ethanol…”

The clock ticked to fill in the awkward silence as I waited.

It ticked 346 times, at my count, before my teacher ahem-ed a second time.

“Yes, yes, the ethanol…”

“The ethanol I ask,” I added helpfully.

He gave me a strange look. “Yes…well…you had better go look in the freezer.”

“The freezer?” I looked around the room, but there was no freezer to be seen.

“In the bio-teacher-room-thingy-mer-bobber,” he said impatiently, gesturing to a hidden door on the other side of the room.

I nodded and headed for there. Just before I opened said door, I noticed a poster on it. It said: “Do as you otter. Wear your goggles!”

“Got it!” I said, and raced for the goggles. I then placed them on, but they slipped down my face and hung around my neck. Thoughtfully, I gazed at them, before shrugging. Close enough, right?

I stepped through the door – it can see into your soul! – and located the freezer. My hand reached out and ripped it open. I reached in to grab the ethanol beaker and -

There were lots of beakers. All filled with substances of different colors. I thought about this dilemma before recalling that ethanol has a distinct smell. So, all I had to do was sniff each beaker and thus determine which was ethanol.

After sniffing all of the twenty-odd beakers, I burst in raucous laughter, realizing the ethanol beaker was the one marked “ethanol”. Still screeching with laughter, I stumbled out of the door, and accidentally tripped on someone’s stool.

Both the kid and I smashed it in to the ground, along with the ethanol beaker. “Beeeeeeer for everrrrrrrryone,” I hiccuped, and then promptly giggled.

Leaping up from the floor, I vaulted over to my lab table and waved energetically to Billy Bob Joe and Squee. Both of them nervously waved back and I laughed again, my sides aching from so much enjoyment. “I broke the beaker!” I said, gasping for breath. “Like this!”

I demonstrated how I had smashed the beaker, and then accidentally knocked over another beaker with my elbow. “Yeah, like that!” I screamed, before tumbling into a fit of hysterics. “Just like that! AHAHAHAHAHA!”

As I brought the broken glass with my cut and bleeding fingers over to the broken glass box (see how that works? see? see? see?), I noticed a funny cactus. I dropped the glass on the floor and went over to it, entranced. It was glowing purple and red and blue, so I decided to poke it.

Suddenly, gigantic spikes shot out of its poky skin and stabbed me. Screaming in pain, I landed against a clown.

Yeah. A clown. He was the glowing too.

I crashed four hours later. Fell asleep in Drama class. I woke up to hear:

“Dude, are you sleeping?”

“Hey, look, she’s asleep!”

“I think she’s dead.”

My head raised and I blinked groggily, in time to see three boys standing over me. I muttered something incoherent and then did what any startled person would do.

Go back to sleep.