Buckle up ya’ll I’m gonna tell the story of how when I was ten years old I was a member of a secret chemistry society that used our lunch time to boom stuff up on the lab.
So when I made ten years old I asked for a chemistry kit (as the fucking nerd I was) as my birthday gift. Instead of playing on the playground on the school lunch time (because someone tried to choke me on the swings line before throwing me head first on the ground -but that is a story for another time-), I took my chemistry kit to the Dark Stairwell (there were two stairwells on my school, the main one, right on the middle of the building, that everybody used and the Dark Stairwell that has that name because there were no lights on it, obvs and because what happens on the Dark Staiwell stays on the Dark stairwell… People used to go there and snog, gossip, carve the bricks -yes, carve the bricks- or plan murders and stuff like that, hence “dark”).
The Dark Stairwell was adjacent to the school’s Chemistry Lab. As ten years olds, my class was not allowed to enter the lab. We only start chemistry classes when we are 12/13.
But there was this lady… we used to call her the “Lab lady”. She was very sweet and kind and she saw me on the dark stairs, playing with my kit and we started talking and we got inside the lab. I showed her my chemistry kit and she showed me some cool simple experiments (changing the colour of some solutions and stuff)
From that day forward I always spent my lunch time on the lab with her. But the curious thing was that some of the other kids noticed that and since we weren’t allowed on the lab, the place was like the Wardrobe for Narnia. They started to come and stay there too.
By the middle of the month we were at least fifteen 10-year-olds making experiments with the Lab Lady. Every day was a new one. It was AMAZING. The Lab Lady was like our mom, she never lost patience when we couldn’t do the things and she used to call us “her little geniuses”. When we started, she helped us up our seats (because they were too tall for us) and by the end of our experiments time, she helped us clean our hands (because we were too small to reach the lab sink) and we bombarded her with curious science questions that she answered patiently and in a funny way.
But then again, we were children. What do children want with chemistry? Explosions, of course! Chaos! We were tiny little satans So the Lab Lady used to tease us that by the end of the month she would blow something up for us.
DUDE, WE WERE FREAKED. When the end of the month arrived (also the end of the semester, the day before the school break) we ran to the lab and the Lab Lady gave us some cool protective glasses and she messed our hairs and she said “Now ya’ll look like mad little scientists” and she told us to keep our distance and she literally blew something up. Of course, it wasn’t a big explosion, It was a small safe reaction, more lights than boom but we were jumping around asking her to do it again and how that was magical and stuff. She then proceeded to change the colour of the flames several times and we were in awe.
The Lab Lady was like our Gandalf and we were her excited little hobbits. And we went on to our break already wanting to go back to do more “booms and stuff”
However, when our break was over and we were back to school, the lab was closed, the lights were off. Everything was dark just like the Dark Stairwell. And our Gandalf was gone.
Everyday we went there and waited for her to show up and explode something else but she didn’t.
By the end of the week, on the last class of the day, there was a knock on the door.
The messiah Lab Lady was back! But… She gathered her 15 dance partners on the corner and told us that she was leaving the school and she just came to say goodbye to her little hobbits.
It was a mess. There were 15 kids crying and fighting over who gets to sit on her lap and hug her next. And our portuguese teacher was just watching us like “????”
A couple years later, when we had our first chemistry class on the lab, the remaining hobbits of the 15, gathered and did the same small explosion when the teacher had us making experiments on our own.
I believe that that was our own way of saying “O captain, my captain.”
Hail, the Lab Lady. You will never be forgotten. Your little hobbits planted the acorn on the Shire.
This is the best thing I have read or will ever read.
All Hail The Lab Lady
