Funny Lab Stories

[GradTX]

In the lab across the hall, one of the students is ordering absorbent laboratory bench protector pads (you know, "lab diapers"). The student thinks that they are called "sanitary napkins" and proceeds to order 500 of them from Fisher. A week later, a giant box of maxi-pads comes in the mail. No one in the lab knows what to do with them!

Anyone else have any good lab stories?

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[Thundrstorm]

Wait a minute, Fisher sells maxi pads?!

 

[dr.z]

Wait a minute, Fisher sells maxi pads?!

I didn't know they sold them. I think this is one of the best lab stories I have heard. Sorry I don't know of any other good ones.

 

[GradTX]

Wait a minute, Fisher sells maxi pads?!

Yeah, I just checked the catalog. They really need pictures.

https://www1.fishersci.com/Coupon?catnum=19067146

 

[dr.z]

Yeah, I just checked the catalog. They really need pictures.

https://www1.fishersci.com/Coupon?catnum=19067146

It's discontinued now. I wonder why they used to carry them in the first place.

 

[potato51]

In the lab across the hall, one of the students is ordering absorbent laboratory bench protector pads (you know, "lab diapers"). The student thinks that they are called "sanitary napkins" and proceeds to order 500 of them from Fisher. A week later, a giant box of maxi-pads comes in the mail. No one in the lab knows what to do with them!

Anyone else have any good lab stories?

That's hilarious! I work in a lab, and originally I didn't know what the hell to call them.

But eventually I discovered they were called "Underpads" like these https://www1.fishersci.com/Coupon?cid=1341&gid=306048.

 

[scooter31]

That's hilarious! I work in a lab, and originally I didn't know what the hell to call them.

But eventually I discovered they were called "Underpads" like these https://www1.fishersci.com/Coupon?cid=1341&gid=306048.

Oh yeah, we use those in MRI research, as when your project entails scanning monkeys or the elderly, well inevitably you'll have a nice parting gift waiting for you when youre done scanning them.

Another mildly humourous anecdote from the world of imaging research:

Scan this guy. Perfectly healthy. His scans look horrible, lots of artifact coming from something metallic. Not good. We take him out, do another thorough metal check, and try scanning again. Images still are full of noise.

We scrap the scan, and debrief the guy. Ask him the usual questions. Nothing. Nothing he has done, so he says, would cause the things we're seeing. No implanted metal, etc etc.

Cleaning up. I find all of these iron filings/shavings everywhere in the magnet. Wherever his head was,there were tons of these little filings. Argh. I finally get them all cleaned up, and tell one of our physicists.

He asks, was your subject balding?

Yeah, I guess.

Oh, he probably sprayed hair in a can all over his scalp and was too embarassed to tell you that what he did; you that stuff is basically thin metal filings with glue...

The things the manual doesnt prepare you for.

 

[QofQuimica]

That's a great story. One of my labmates put a bottle of beer into the -78 freezer and forgot about it. The next time we opened the freezer, it looked like one of those still motion art things. The cap had burst off, the beer had sprayed into an arc in the air, and the whole thing had frozen solid before the beer hit the shelf. It was beautiful. We left it like that for a few weeks, but the prof made us take it out when he saw it.

 

[Adcadet]

In the lab across the hall, one of the students is ordering absorbent laboratory bench protector pads (you know, "lab diapers").

In the last basic lab I worked in, we called them "chucks," which I thought was a stupid name.

 

[scooter31]

 

[banana k]

we were trying to figure out a good way to assess heart rates & contraction depths in fish using a Doppler, and since we were getting so much muscle and gill noise, we tried putting them in condoms. required me making a rather large purchase of birth control & having to explain things to the secretary on reimbursement.

i once managed to plunge off a tall lab stool from a standing position while wearing a miniskirt--and my PI tried to catch me. many bruises & much shame, particularly when extricating myself from the chair legs without flashing him any more.

we had the queen's governor for Qld and her entourage about to tour the lab, so my PI told us all to clean the hell up... well, i'd dropped some toad blood on the floor in the course of a trial. i was also in the middle of cleaning a bunch of spec cuvettes with alcohol (we save them for the undergrads). in my infinite ditziness, i decided to sterilise those little blood spots with same... not connecting the dots that dropping alcohol on a waxed floor melts the wax off. the floor looked like a aerial photos for the governor.

last but not least, was in the ER doing a trial with my PI and an attending, involving an echocardiogram on a fish. fish wriggled and slapped me across the chest with Doppler goop, leaving me with two non-drying lactation marks in exactly the right places. the attending was nearly wetting himself for the next half hour, and my PI could barely look at me.

dear oh dear, but i do embarrass myself in labs.

 

[DKlein]

So theres a certain someone in my lab who always puts things in his mouth. When he needs his hands, the pen goes in his mouth, the papers he was holding go in his mouth... whatever. So I work in a behavioral pharmacology lab and hes loading syringes, and before he loads it he needs to write something down. He stabs himself, with the syringe, in the mouth. The needle goes through his lip and into his cheek. He was fine... but nice move.