Bathroom Science

Remember Rumsfeld's known knowns and all that? I'd like to suggest that there are also known grossnesses and unknown grossnesses. For instance, nobody wants a tick on their naughty bits—we all understand that. But I once got one on my lower right eyelid. Brrrrr!!!!

I had a moment like that today. I complain a lot about the ants here—yes, I've taken steps, and spread so much insecticide around that it would have been simpler to use one of those Agent Orange choppers left over from Vietnam. To no avail, of course. The ants are out and about most days, some more than others, and I don't know what combination of factors is encouraging to an ant but that combination is present today. Zillions of them, and I went into the bathroom and there were like five or six on the bristles of my toothbrush. I'm sorry, but that creeped me out. That's just not where you want to see a swarm of insects.

So I knocked them off into the sink and started the hot water up. They just floated, the little bastards, so I remembered an old science trick they would use to teach kids about surface tension. The teacher would carefully drop a sewing needle in a beaker of water, and it would float—or, more precisely, be held up by the surface tension. Stick a corner of a bar of soap in the water, the surface tension goes poof, and the needle sinks.

I remembered this seemingly useless fact today. Ants floating, swirling about merrily? Heh heh heh—I been to skool, you little bums! Grab the soap, hold it under the faucet, and zoink! The ants are now awash. Open the drain, and they're circling away to oblivion. That's called the Coriolis effect, which we'll talk about some other time.  Whoops! I was wrong about that. Stupid know-it-all Wikipedia!