Warning: Mad Scientist Crossing

When I decided to attend graduate school, I didn’t realize I would be putting my life in such danger. I mean, I knew about all the associated mental health problems, because everyone who is struggling through a Ph.D. goes through periods of hopelessness and depression, right? And besides, there has to be some mental defect initially in anyone who thinks that pursuing a Ph.D. in the sciences is a good plan. There’s all the bench-work associated dangers that I knew I would encounter… working with radiation, subjecting myself to enough ethidium bromide that has likely worked its way through my gloves into my skin where it has intercalated into my DNA and as such I am probably in the process of sprouting an additional finger on my left hand, dealing with all the chemicals that are labeled “USE ONLY IN CHEMICAL HOOD” on a regular old lab bench since our current lab doesn’t have a fume hood… those sort of dangers. Little did I know that I would be attacked by laboratory equipment or watch my life flash before my eyes as I was nearly flattened by a crazed man with an animal transport cart.
After our weekly evening lab meeting, we (a fellow PhD friend, who is doing a rotation through my thesis lab and I) were heading out of the building, escaping back into freedom, about to walk through the swinging double doors that lead from the research building into the pre-clinical science building. Luckily for us, she must have extraordinary hearing abilities to notice the rapid squeek of a wheel, because suddenly she paused and switched from walking along my left side to my right. A split second later, a ridiculously loud ‘BANG’ noise causes us both to literally jump in the air, as a man (who, fittingly, looked exactly like a mad scientist – the wild grey hair sticking up in every direction, crazy too-many-hours-sniffing-chemicals look in his eye) pushing an empty animal transport cart comes flying full-speed through the door. Had my friend not moved and dragged me with her, we most certainly would have been flatted into the wall… or at least been left with very bloody broken noses. The traditional, sane way of walking down that hallway is to walk up to the swinging doors, push one open by hand, and pull the cart through. Maybe this guy figured that since it was after 6pm the hallway would be empty… except that plenty of people are still in the building until late. Maybe he was thinking that he would just put two poor first year Ph.D. students out of their misery the week before finals. Maybe he just wasn’t thinking at all. Regardless, I now realize that getting a Ph.D. is more than just hard work and dedication, it’s about just trying to make it past attacking laboratory equipment and crazy fellow researchers in one piece!