Well, this is embarrassing.

Do you ever have those days where you would just like to curl up and go to sleep right on the floor of the organic chemistry lab? No? Well, I do, and today was one of them. It had already been a long day: waking up at 6AM to get a shower before my suitemates (because we all have 8AM classes,) sitting through a pre-calculus lecture, organic chemistry lecture, making phone calls for my job and reading for another class, cell biology lecture and a healthy dose of RGTA (Receiving-Graded-Test-Anxiety,) all I wanted was a nice and easy organic lab to end the school day. That's not too much to ask, is it?

Let me fast-forward the next three hours to the end of organic lab. This had been a tough one - tedious and easily messed-up. The lab was freezing, my lab partner and I were surrounded by separatory funnels, beakers, flasks, funnels, hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide, Hirsch funnels, vacuum hoses, and various other bits of equipment and toxic chemicals, and we were already running late. It was five minutes past four o'clock and we only had one more step to go! All we had to do was hold a beaker of diethyl ether and a dissolved crystal over a hot water bath to allow the ether to evaporate and leave us with our crystals. Then we'd be done!

Did I mention that ether is flammable?




No?



It is.



All I had to do was hold the beaker over a hot water bath. It was supposed to be easy. Every other lab group had done it with no problem.

Did I mention that this hot water bath had been turned up as high as it would go by some impatient student before me?


No?


It was.



So I go over to the hot water bath, lower my ether-filled beaker into the boiling water, and wait. I notice the ether has started boiling vigorously, so I decided to ease it out of the water before it over flowed. Now, I'm still not sure exactly what happened, but let me just say one thing...


FIRE!!!

And not just a little candle-light glow either, but raging

FIRE!!!

No small s'more roasting camp fire, but a blazing, bon-

FIRE!!!

Yes, I, Casey Holloway, single-handedly caught the organic lab on fire. Thankfully, my lab TA and professor were not far away and came over to put out the fire, but not before it had disfigured a squirt bottle, melted the plastic covering inside the hood, turned my boiling stick into charcoal, and roasted the inside of my beaker. But hey,

my ether evaporated. :)