by Gav on Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:18 pm
I don't actually know what would happen if you dropped a chuck of sodium metal into a can of chlorine gas, but this strip was based on a story told to me back when I was a freshman by my Chemistry 1B professor.
He had a bunch of these unbelievable stories which made me wonder, if they were true, how he was still alive today. He said when he was twelve, he decided he wanted to make salt from scratch and that his older sister swiped a chuck of sodium from her chemistry class for him, and that he made his own chlorine, "as any rambunctious 12-year-old knows how," by electrolizing household bleach. He said there was a small explosion (or maybe just a "bright flash") and he and the ceiling were soon covered by white crystals.
His story went on to say that he still had chlorine left over and he decided he wanted to find out what it smelled like...
Seconds later, he was half-blind and passing out, stumbling about the basement looking for his dad's book on poisons. Apparently, the antidote to chlorine inhalation is inhaling alcohol fumes. So he stumbled upstairs, broke into his parents' liquor cabinet, dosed his shirt in vodka, and passed out with it draped over his face.
Then his parents walked in 15 minutes later and his mom screamed, "My Lord, our son's an alcoholic!" to which he came to, and said, "No no! I just inhaled chlorine gas!"
Not sure where that one rates on the BS meter, but it has always left me wondering what would really happen if you tried to make salt "from scratch."
Uh, maybe I should say "Don't try this at home," lest I inadvertently kill someone with this strip.
Lates...
Darren "Gav" Bleuel
(
Nukees, an atomic comic)