since that last lab anecdote was surprisingly well received, lemme tell you guys about the time I accidentally syringed myself with an anaesthetic intended for the lab rat (and the associated nonsense that followed). 🙈
It was a Physiology practicum at uni, and we were supposed to dose the animals so they go to sleep (while being careful not to miscalculate the dose and kill them). This particular technique required one person from the pair to hold the rat in their hand on its back, while the other person holds its hind leg extended and carefully injects the anaesthetic.
The girl I was paired with was a little bit afraid of rats, and a lot nervous, and she was shaking while holding the rodent (too loosely as it turned out). I take a deep breath (also nervous) and go for the injection; in a fraction of a second, the animal twitches, she twitches, everything fucking twitches, and I end up plunging the syringe into the hand that was holding the critter's leg.
I pull it out immediately, dropping a few creative and panicked curses, and look up to see that the chick had her eyes screwed shut. Hearing me swear and assuming I missed, she's like: "It's ok, it's ok, at least you didn't stab me!"
Me, through clenched teeth: "Didn't stab you, I stabbed myself." 🙄🤐🤦♀️
Attempting damage control, I check out the syringe and see it's almost still full. Okay. So. I get someone less jittery to hold the damn thing and administer the anaesthetic. About 10 minutes later everyone else's furrballs are sound asleep, while ours staggers around drunkenly, then flops on its back and keeps flailing its limbs. The hot TA has the perfect timing to show up and jokingly ask "Why is this rat having an epileptic seizure?", and I give him my most clueless, innocent expression like I have no fucking idea that it's lacking some drugs currently making their merry way to my liver.
The next part of the task is to count the number of toes and nipples the rat has (Lord help me, I still don't see the purpose of that one but they had to keep us busy somehow I guess). My very competent lab partner has trouble finding anything through the thick fur and my own patience is in short supply, so I tell her to just google it. She googles "nipples on a mouse" and gets a fuckload of images depicting boob-stickers for a computer mouse. We dissolve into hysterical laughter and I try to tell her to search Mus musculus or something equally scientific, but instead end up laughing harder, when the TA passes by and raises an eyebrow in our general direction. And at that point I was pretty much resigned with the whole clusterfuck of events so I put in minimal effort to elaborate: "We're not very normal", I manage between giggles.
"That's ok", he responds. "Nobody in science is."
