Klutzes Need Not Apply

This is what should top the job description for my replacement when they post it in the spring.

I am accident prone. It's not pretty, it's not horrible, it's just true. If I were one to cry over spilled milk, well, let's just say that I'd be pretty dehydrated most of the time. Anyway, being a Very Serious Water Ecologist like me involves fine motor skills sometimes and also a large amount of expensive glassware. Yes, it's true that I've broken the occasional volumetric flask or seperatory funnel. Yes I've broken the frequent test tube. But today just really took the cake. I broke the bulb on my sonde's pH probe. I was cleaning it gently with a q-tip. Everything about today seemed great, perfect fall weather, crunchy leaves, delicious english muffin at breakfast and then my new q-tip probe cleaning technique was working so well! It deschutzified like nothing else. Until the probe shattered and then it didn't really matter, did it. All of the big-kid type scientists who have been doing this for a while have been sympathetic. My boss just blatantly made fun of me for being uber klutzy, but still. This does suck. Not in a small way because half of the other probes on the instrument rely on the pH reading for their readings. I took out the broken one and capped its port. It still thinks that it can measure pH, but the readings are insane. It said 2 sitting in sink water and then I grabbed its housing and the reading jumped to, uh, 37. For those not pH saavy, the scale only goes to 14. I don't know how much it costs, but the entire instrument, which I just rendered almost useless until we can get it replaced, costs $9000.

SIGH. And tonight I am planning to clean our room and the bathroom. Maybe we can watch Heros and eat ice cream. Probably I'll just be in that kind of mood that makes me start analyzing the show and I'll totally ruin it for myself. Oi, I'm quite the Eyore right now.