In the middle of the night

(note: this post has been posted post-when-the-post-should-have-been-posted)

The lab is quiet. Machines murmur in the background, occasionally some pipe will make a sound. Green Day Radio on pandora.com comes out of the lab computer's pitiful speakers like headphones in a tin can. I glance at the time. 12:09 AM

Why am I here? Because if I don't get the gel results by tomorrow morning, we will be a day behind. And I'm a good guy; I don't want to hold anybody up. So I sit and wait for 30 minutes to go by so that I can take the gel out of the stain, dunk it in de-stain and go home for the night.

Being in the lab itself can be fun late at night. No one's around, so I can blast the music as loud as I want (when I bring my computer). More importantly, I'm completely on my own. Question? No one's there to answer it, so I have to think on my feet.

But the building and the walk to and from it are creepy, no question. The hallways are dark, and you have no idea who else is around. You walk quickly to wherever you need to go, and don't look back. When you're alone in there, the slightest noise will set you off.

So you can imagine how pleased I was by the fire alarm going off at around 12:20 AM. I've heard the horror stories. Steam pipes exploding. Chemicals burning. Etc. I rushed for the exit, but I knew that my gel was almost ready. So I didn't go too far. At one point I used the wrong stairwell (not that anyone was there to direct me otherwise), and eventually I met up with the night guard as well as two local Philly firemen.

They couldn't figure out what was wrong. But they didn't seem too concerned and moved along. That was enough for me. I sneaked back into my lab real quick, changed the stain and got out of there.

Moral of the story - don't play the night lab rat unless you are the kind of person who knows how to conduct himself in a crisis.