@Anon Y. Mous
Still waiting-
no change yet!
The British Medical Journal has revealed a mistaken diagnosis of cancer was caused by Playmobil. A quartet of medico-boffins from the Departments of Respiratory Medicine at Wythenshawe and Royal Preston Hospital explain this malaise in a British Medical Journal case note titled “An airway traffic jam: a plastic traffic cone …
I once crushed a Mercury-based thermometer in my mouth, too. However, it happened in a doctor's office. The doctor rammed the thermometer in my mouth just as I sneezed. Glass and bits of Mercury went all over the place (my mouth, the table, the office, him, etc.).
Metallic Mercury isn't all that toxic. Heck, drinking a bit of it used to be a folk-remedy for an upset stomach! Now, other Mercury compounds, such as Dimethyl Mercury, can be exceedingly toxic.
Anyway, it doesn't seem to have hurt me. Or, maybe that explains why I'm a cryptographer now?
Dave
P.S. I'll get my coat. It's the one with the pocket full of Mercury-based thermometers. Have to have something to snack on, don't I?
I always felt nervous having one of those stuck under my tongue and being told to close my mouth. Nowadays you can buy cheap contactless gadgets that read the temperature of whatever surface you point them at.
One day the office nurse commented that the vending machine was producing cups of coffee that seemed dangerously hot. She dunked one of her body temperature thermometers in my cup - and the thermometer immediately disintegrated.
One day the office nurse commented that the vending machine was producing cups of coffee that seemed dangerously hot. She dunked one of her body temperature thermometers in my cup - and the thermometer immediately disintegrated.
With all those dangerously hot beverages around, no wonder you have an office nurse!
Are the biscuits covered with glass shards, too?
Not quite as dramatic as the thermometer, but the coffee vending machine outside the lecture theatre when I was at university dispensed coffee hot enough to melt* the stirrers intended to go with them.
There was less attention paid to the lecturer, and more to constructing plastic stirrer sculptures.
* ok, maybe not actually melt, but considerably soften.
I think it would have been much more fun sending in a crack team of shrink rayed Playmobil figures to retrieve said cone rather like in that old film Fantastic Voyage. They could have been kitted out with jumpsuits, backpacks, ropes, saws, lasers and hard hats to complete the job. I'd pay money to watch that.