The Dangers of Words on Magnets

For reasons that I may explain in a later post, I found myself in a nostalgic mood at work Friday.   I developed an urge to document the magnets and other random decorations that adorn my hood at Exelixis before they were lost to history (that's a little hint to the pending events in my lab).

Years ago, American Express used to include magnetic fake credit cards in all the junk mail they sent to me.  Their potential functional value was too high to just toss them in the trash, but they were too tacky for my fridge at home.  But the lab --  they were perfect for the lab.  So I started sticking them to my fume hood (Note to AmEx advertisers: I've been looking at those things every day for probably 5 or 6 years, and they never led me to get one of your cards.  Your Jedi mind tricks won't work on me, you rebel scum!).

Eventually, AmEx switched from fake magnetic credit cards to fake cardboard credit cards which have no aesthetic or functional value whatsoever.  So I expanded my lab magnet collection to include pretty much anything I could get my hands on.  I have magnets from China given to me by a friend.  I have magnetic major league baseball schedules from season long since completed.  I have magnetic reminders for Cornell Reunions that have come and gone.  I even have magnets that I spent my own hard-earned money on.   I may get to those in this blog some day, but this post is about the magnetic poetry set.

In December 2005 (I made the year up.  I have no idea which year this really happened), I acquired a magnetic poetry set at an Exelixis Chemistry Department White Elephant Christmas gift exchange.  My friend Owen contributed the set to the gift exchange with express hope that I would end up with it. He knew full well that if it ended up in my hands he would have an opportunity to humiliate me with it.  Mission Accomplished.  Of course I had to share the set with my lab-mates by putting it up on my fume hood.  Since I learned at my State Mandated Biannual Sensitivity Training (thank you, Arnold Schwarzeneggar) that it is my responsibility not to create a hostile work environment I had to edit my list of available words.  Shown below are the magnets I chose to leave in the box in a drawer at my bench.  I think you'll agree they needed to be isolated and kept under surveillance.

Despite my best efforts, I still ended up with poems like the following:

and....

You would have thought 'apparatus' would end up in some nerdy haiku about distillation or something.  This is a chemistry lab, for heaven's sake, not a harlequin novel publishing office.  Sheesh.

One more thing: At 6'4" my head protrudes above the sash to my fume hood by a few inches.  Most of the 'poems' shown above are at about eye level for me.  On occasion (rather frequently in the past few weeks), I'll lean my forehead against my fume hood while developing a TLC plate (if you don't understand, you don't need to know).  A few minutes later, I'll find myself on the receiving end of quizzical looks as my colleagues try to determine why I have little black rectangles stuck to my head.  After a little prompting, I'll reach up and peel one off to find the word 'puppy' or 'froth' staring back at me.  Not only is this a little embarrassing, it also messes up the poems.

The poetry set may be coming down soon, but at least it served its purpose -- to entertain others at my expense.