Echoes of the bench in my everyday life

Luggage tag I got from a vendor show.  Free stuff! Yay!

I have been a stay-at-home mom for 264 days, just a little under 9 months, and this is the longest I've been away from a lab in nearly 12 years.  But who's counting?  I am often asked by my friends still on the inside whether or not I miss the lab.  The answer is a complicated one, rooted in practical forward-thinking optimism, but tinged with sappy nostalgia for the thing I spent the entirety of my twenties doing.  Let me try to paint a picture for you of what it feels like to be a former bench jockey who finds herself exiled to Elba suburbia.

The closest I get to a centrifuge these days is the shiny, new, high-efficiency washing machine my landlord installed for us.  Sometimes when I'm in my laundry room sorting grungy, stinky little boy clothes (oh, who are we kidding, my husband is an adult), I close my eyes and listen as the spin cycle revs up, the machine shaking ever so slightly as it cruises past 500 rpms, and I remember.  I remember popping tubes into the centrifuge we called "the spaceship", a galactic-gray, futuristic monstrosity from the seventies.  I had to use all my weight to latch the door.  Then I would push "start" and back way, way up as it got up to speed, howling like a spaceship blasting off (hence the name), wondering all the while if this would be the time it finally failed and threw the rotor at me.

I open my kitchen cabinets to pull ingredients for dinner and suddenly I'm whisked back in time to the stock room at my last job; a walk-in closet of consumables and reagents, a science convenience store, if you will.  The possibilities felt endless standing there inside that room, smelling of LB broth, the freshly cleaned glassware sparkling from it's shelves where it had been neatly put away according to size and category.  A hyper-organized Type A's dream.  Back in the present, I cast a resentful look at my sink full of dishes and remember the carefree joy of placing dishes in a tub near my bench, only for them to disappear and magically reappear hours later, clean and ready to use again.  Maybe I should hire a technician?  No, a housekeeping service.  Well, we don't have the grant money for that anyway. 

Later, after I've served a meal to my family who seemed only moderately impressed with my efforts and presentation, I am reminded of the many bosses, committees and reviewers that have judged my work, detached from the blood, sweat and tears I put into it.  As I did back then, I will swallow my pride, take my critiques, and get back to it again tomorrow.  Of course the one reviewer who was unnecessarily cruel will stick with me for a while ("that Western Blot was disgusting Mommy", or did my son say, "casserole"??...).  I aliquot the leftovers and put them in the 4 degree freezer.

I wield wooden spoons and measuring cups like I once wielded pipets.  I read cookbooks like I once read protocols, mixing and matching steps from several versions to come up with the best possible recipe.  I occasionally explode things in the microwave, so that hasn't changed.  I wear disposable gloves to cut up raw meat at BSL-1 and wonder to myself, "shouldn't I be doing this in the hood?".   

I trade the latest news on childhood obesity and brain development with my children's pediatrician.  We commiserate on the sinking vaccination rates and the latest outbreaks of things like the measles.  We express our amazement at the newest recommendations for preventing peanut allergies (news flash: feed your baby peanut-containing products as early as 6 months- check out a piece I wrote for Scientific American Food Matters Blog for more on this).  It's just like being back in the break room at work.  The only things missing are some snacks pilfered from a random seminar and a good cup of coffee.  Perhaps for my kid's next checkup I'll bring some Dunkins and ask the receptionist to babysit for a few minutes.

I read reviews of a new sippy cup I'm thinking of trying out on my toddler, and see advertisements that scream, "revolutionary design, strongest suction!"  Of course I think, "show me the evidence! Where are the links to the data? And is 'strongest suction' really the best thing, physiologically, for the child?  Perhaps a more moderate suction would be more beneficial to the development of their cheek and tongue muscles.  And this cup is so new, it's barely made it beyond peer-review.  Only 23 citations on Amazon..."

This turkey is precisely 165 deg F (and only a little bit dry).

Perhaps more practically, I clean my bathrooms with ammonia and worry about the development of resistant bacteria.  I use a meat thermometer religiously (and frequently serve dried out, overcooked meat as a result) and worry about E. coli, listeria, and salmonella infections.  I help my kids blow their noses and then immediately scrub my hands, hyper-aware of my fingers and keeping them away from my face.

At the same time, I don't stress out about mopping my floors regularly, knowing that a little household dirt is doing wonders to train my kid's burgeoning immune systems (what an awesome excuse to be a lazy housekeeper!).

My kids and I discuss science and medicine around the dinner table and on long car rides, and I supply answers to questions like, "why is blood red?" and " why is pee yellow?" and even "ewww! why does baby sister have blueberries in her poop?!" (kids are preoccupied with bodily fluids).

In short, science has colored every aspect of my life.  Being a scientist is as much a part of who I am as anything else that describes me is (ex "germaphobic", heh).  I will always be a scientist in the way I act, think and feel, regardless of whether or not I suit up to go to work in a lab everyday.

So, do I miss working in a lab?  Yes, I do.  At least, I miss the idea of it, in the wistful sort of way that you might remember a time in your life that you didn't quite appreciate until it was over.  But the things I learned from working in a lab come with me everyday in my life on the outside.  And maybe, one day, I'll go back (although I've made certain friends promise to slap me if I ever seriously consider it), and bring some lessons I've learned on the outside with me.  But that's a post for another time.  

This is the aforementioned centrifuge, complete with a "Caution" sign that I taped to it warning people that the lid slams shut and will take off your fingers if given the chance.  I am told it has since kicked the bucket.  Rest in peace, spaceship.

UPDATE! An old coworker just sent me this much nicer image of the Spaceship. When I asked her why she happened to have this pic, she said, "I took pics of all the old equipment because no one believed me otherwise...And I documented everything in case I was ever injured...".  Sounds about right (shout out to my dana14 crew!).