Impatience is Not a Virtue

I’m always anxious to get started, no matter what the project.

I got a slide preparation kit that included lots of handy things and 2 stains in powder form. I put off reconstituting them.

In the meantime, I did some beginners’ exercises. Salt: table, kosher, flake. Looked at some cheese mold. These have helped me get more comfortable with my scope. Then I got to another beginner task: cheek cells which should be stained.

Time to add water to the Methylene Blue powder.

Problem: I did not have gloves. Ancillary problem: I had no experience with or practical knowledge of this substance. I decided to try it anyway – I’d be very careful.  HA!  Tiny little bottle of powder. Eyedropper same diameter as bottle top. 

WOW! Is it BLUE! So was the toweling I used to soak up any spillage.  So were my fingertips and their nails.(Should have taken a pic) Running water helped very little.  Off to Google. Learned that diluted bleach was the answer; but I just used it full strength.

I’ll look at cheek cells tomorrow.

I now have gloves. And little jars of dilute bleach and rubbing alcohol among my kit. I guess every mistake is a learning experience. I hope every learning experience is not the result of a mistake.