Friday, February 19, 2010

Vending machine fun

Not five minutes ago, I had a rather bizarre conversation. I was buzzing around my lab trying to put together this and that to make an electrophoresis gel. In the midst of my electrophoretic adventures, I was accosted by a jovial man who was twice my weight (a fact seemingly explained by the two dozen donuts he was carrying in the crook of his arm). He flung a cheery “Hi” at me as only an American can (one of their most redeeming qualities). Despite being a little confused by this blatant show of amicableness, I returned the salutation. Little did I know that this would brand me as the recipient of a long set of instructions that the fellow seemed to have tucked away in his voluminous belly. I listened to him for quite a few seconds before I realized that I had not the faintest idea what the chap was talking about. The conversation vent as follows:

Donut man: Mugga wugga bum wum…if ya see Jorge..mumble wumble…vending machine…grumbums wumbums….?crows….abra cadabra…let him know….
Pranay: …

So with the small amount of deciphering skill that I had garnered from my rushed read of “Cracking codes and cryptography for dummies”, I ventured to guess that there existed some sort of a vending machine on the third floor of our building and some bloke called Jorge didn’t know something about it. At this point, I felt compelled to ask him how I fit into the food chain.

Pranay: “Er… you do realize that I work in a lab, don’t you?”
Donut Dude: “Oh, sorry I thought you were with the company! Have a nice day, my friend!”

The reason I find myself nonplussed by this exchange is that I was clutching three graduated cylinders and a conical flask containing electrophoresis buffer and agar. Also, I was wearing garish purple gloves covered in mutagen. Is there something nefarious that I don’t know about snack machines, the snacks in them, and the chaps who restock them?

No comments: