On a beautiful day like today, it’s hard to believe that anything could go wrong. After such a bitter cold, dismal winter that seemed to never go away, I woke up to the surprise of clear skies, a temperate climate and a gentle breeze. Everyone I met seemed to be happy as can be. The cafeteria was even serving cotton candy and freshly popped popcorn for St. Patrick’s Day (the correlation of cotton candy and Irish Saint Festivals is still unclear to me). All was right in the world.
And then I went to my Chemistry Lab.
For just today, Chem Lab Room 202 was the SVC ER, and all of our patients had clogged arteries (too much Shack food can do that to you).
Apparently there were somewhere on the order of 50 “patients” (bottles of acid) who all were going into cardiac arrest at the same time, and each one of them had exactly a half hour to live. My three colleagues and I were responsible for saving just one of these “patients.” Our patient was named Mr. A-1, apparently for the Steak Sauce. He had a blood pH level of 6.92, which, if left unchecked, would proved to be exceptionally lethal. It was our mission to calculate the proper amount of base needed to raise his pH to the “safety range” of 7.35-7.45
Using medical-school level mathematics and chemical analysis, we determined that Mr. A-1 needed exactly 60.3mL of our base to stabilize him. We delicately mixed the solution and prepared for the climactic moment. With Dr. Vohs M.D. watching over us, we mixed our solution and watched the pH meter to see if it would rise. It rose so well that it went right on past the safety range and right on in to the “dead as a doornail” range. You might be inclined to think that killing the patient doesn’t bode well for me; I’m inclined to think that killing the patient doesn’t bode well for Mr. A-1. Whatever the case, I killed the only man I was supposed to save, which is unfortunate.
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