More Excitement

In the dental school this morning. I got here early, ate yogurt as I stared across the city in morning light. I ate yogurt because I thought it would be cheap. It actually wasn't, but it wasn't prohibitively expensive either. I've gotten a fair amount of preventative maintenance done. Usually preventative work in the labs doesn't draw much attention, but today I was asked what I was doing by about 5 people, maybe because I'm dressed down today in just a t-shirt and ratty old jeans. Nonetheless, it's a bit annoying to explain why these constantly used machines occasionally need replacement parts. I think it's self-explanatory.

What was actually interesting was hazardous waste. I had to manifest a bunch, maybe 15-25 pounds of human teeth that sit in cups of dried plaster with amalgam (heavy metal fillings) in the teeth. They were in a large bucket supplied to us without a top. Normal procedure for such things is to send them out in whatever container they arrive in, but without the bucket top, that's not exactly possible. Instead, I ended up having to package them in a cardboard box.

So, first I determined that putting their bucket in the box wouldn't really work. This meant I had to find a suitable replacement, so I ended up finding a plastic garbage bag to line the box with. I do this to prevent hazardous material(the heavy metals) from seeping out easily in transit. So, the next step was to actually get the teeth from the bucket and into their shipping container. I did this the most crude and easy way possible, that is, I ended up lifting up the bucket and pouring.

The bucket being not prohibitively heavy, this seemed like the easiest option. One thing I forgot was the tendency for weight to shift weirdly when being turned and moved violently. After a bit of thought I managed to lift the bucket above the cart, and with a little bit of apprehension, to pour the teeth into their shipping box. The teeth slid slowly at first, but then proceeded to tumble at an alarming rate into the box. Teeth hit other teeth hard, sending shards of human tooth flying into my safety goggles. It made me happy to have safety goggles.

Within a minute the ordeal was over, the box was properly labeled for pickup and sealed. It felt good to have the bucket empty and no longer a threat to me.

After that I walked around with the song "Save Tonight" by Eagle Eye Cherry stuck in my head. I didn't mean for that to happen.I heard it not with their singers voice, but rather Jamie Stewart, the lead singer of Xiu Xiu's