Mr. Sweetypants is a scientist, but I couldn't begin to tell you what he does for a living. He has an advanced degree in chemistry and works with spectrometers. That is, seriously, all I can tell you about what he does. I have an English degree and a short attention span and never took chemistry in high school or college.
God bless him, he tried to explain it to me when we were dating and I tried to pretend to follow him, but he saw that glazed-over-not-really-listening-anymore expression I'd get. To be completely fair, he relies on spell-check (though he's a great writer) and asks me to explain parts of speech to him. I usually sing School House Rock songs in response.
Two years ago, our A/C gave out in August, here in hot and humid North Carolina (you really don't want to move here from the Northeast, Arizona is much better), on a Sunday. I was seriously about to grab the panting cats and go to a hotel. But Steve dashed up to his lab, got a tank of liquid nitrogen, brought it home, rigged it to a fan and made a cooling system for the bedroom where I was whining.
He walked me to the door this morning as he always does, and I slid a little on the icy step. Because today is cleaning day, and because I am very sensitive of our cleaning lady quitting after the episode two weeks ago, I told Steve we should do something about the step so she wouldn't get hurt/sue us. Steve said he'd salt it.
I went out and started warming up Judy Jetta. I watched Steve come out with the Crate and Barrel salt mill we got as a wedding present and gently grind expensive sea salt onto the step.
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THE LIGHT EPHEMERAL
1 day ago
2 comments:
I swear we are living parallel lives. I live with an engineer. He does math for a living, and his only saving grace is that he does math for a big brewery, so I can understand the consumption angle of it all based solely on my own vices. I will never understand it, but I will always respect it. And I am hiding my salt grinder as we speak.
It was clear to me that we had 5 minutes to lower the phase transition temperature of the solid water which had accumulated on the front porch steps... I looked around, my thoughts a blur as I hunted for a suitable chemical agent... And there it was - I couldn't believe my luck. There, on a shelf in an ordinary looking kitchen was a container full of almost pure sodium chloride! I took the container to the offending step and twisted the melting agent delivery device, which with cracks and pops distributed the salt over the icy patch.
It was cheaper than the lawsuit would have been ;-)
And it reminds me of my all time favorite SNL sketch - MacGruber...
Scene - MacGruber and friends are trapped in a room with a ticking time bomb, which shows 30 seconds to detonation.
MacGruber: Quick, someone get me some alcohol - vodka will do
Friend: Here.
MacGruber: Some ice, some ice!
Friend: Here you go.
The clock is now at 10 seconds.
MacGruber: Quickly now - some Vermouth.
Friend: Mac, are you making a martini?
Boom.
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