Helen Speaks

Mine wasn’t for eating. It was during my science degree.

I had to make some poly-acrylamide gel. You heat it in the microwave in a pyrex flask stopped loosely with some cotton wool.

I put my cotton wool in too tight and it started to burn.

I leapt into action and opened the microwave, whipping it out and getting rid of it.

My supervisor came by a few minutes  later.

“Do you smell burning?”

“Oh yeah, the cotton wool in my flask was burning so I took it out and…”

My brain cells started connecting, a little too late.

“…threw it in the bin.”

The bin labelled “hazardous waste for incineration”.

Give me credit, it was meant to be burned anyway.

My supervisor rushed the bin outside and found the offending article before too much damage was done.

After that, whenever there was a fire drill, someone asked me what I’d done. Lessons were learned!