the ways we learn

One of my favorite threads from In the Pipeline was the famous "how not to do it" topic.
Today I had one of those little fun days where you learn something you never forget.

While last semester I was doing a lot of molecular work, this semester I'm dealing with picky organisms that never seem satisfied with the media we provide them with. So today I decided I needed to replenish our supply of slants in a particular media. No big deal.

Normally we throw all the media ingredients, stir, pH, and then add the agar. Stir again, put it in the autoclave which will adequately heat the agar and mix properly. No fuss, no muss.
(To the post doc or grad student, I apologize where this is going...take a stroll down memory lane if you like...)

However, the agar must be boiled in the media before you aliquot the mixture to the test tubes, THEN autoclaved. After sterilization, promptly remove and put on tilted rack for cooling. Nooooo problem.

....

What they didn't tell me is that once you have one bubble from your "boil" take the damn flask off the heat. Instead I stood and made sure the media was at a good boil. Turned off the heat...turned to grab the auto-pipet, turned back and then there it was.... a whole mass of boiling-over, foamy, HOT media. In the realization and panic of "hey I can't move that" one of the two grad students grabbed an autoclave glove and moved the flask to the benchtop. We then watched the whole mess flood the area.

And the fun part is that it all congeals nicely onto the benchtop, for you to scrape off later.
This was then followed by a round of stories from the grad students of the same experience. Apparently this is just one of those lessons you only have to learn *once*.

Unfortunately it made a long day that much longer....

As a side note...if your labmates are too idle waiting for their own reasons, make sure they don't start playing with the liquid nitrogen. At least I wasn't really surprised when I heard the loud *boom* from down the hallway...