Bleach dunk

Yesterday, I dropped my timer in my bleach bucket.

Let me explain.

In the lab, I have a three-way timer that I use to keep track of my incubations, washes or other experimental protocols. I also have a two litre bucket on my bench that contains 10% bleach, into which I dispose of plastic tubes and tips in order to disinfect them after use.

Yesterday, said timer fell directly into said bleach bucket. It plummeted immediately to the bottom.

GASP!! 'OH NO!' I yelped. My hand darted after the timer into the bleach bucket (with a latex glove on, so I didn't directly expose myself to bleach) and retrieved my timer.

Bleach had completely filled it so that I could see the water line in the digital screen. I figured it was hooped.

The irony of this situation, is that my friend Mike is constantly threatening to throw my timer into my bleach bucket. I am one of the few in the lab that uses my timer (I'm a bit neurotic that way) and sometimes it goes off when I've stepped out of the lab for awhile. This means that it will beep one, two or three beeps (depending on which of the three timers is set) every second for one minute. I admit, it's pretty annoying. However, when I forget to turn it off before I leave the lab, this is what will happen and this is why Mike threatens to throw it in bleach - to shut it up.

The irony was not lost on either Mike or myself.

In an attempt to revive my timer, I soaked it in distilled water, in order to rinse out the bleach. Then I put the timer in a 37 degree C incubator overnight, to dry it out.

This morning, when I took the timer out of the incubator, the digital screen was vacant still, and I feared the worst. However, not yet giving up, I tapped the timer twice on the counter.

Voila!! Miracle! My timer came alive and started working again!

Resilient little sucker, hey?