WWTBAM Bored

or blonde, for that matter. Though that last was not seriously an option.


So I find this old radio, which used to also play tapes, but the tapes part is completely dismantled. I check the battery compartment; oh, there are batteries, but I figure they are old. And I find they won't come out. So I try to pry them out; no luck. So I get a knife. Pry the batteries out, find that the reason they were stuck is one had leaked. Battery acid is now battery salt in the floor of the compartment. (Duracells actually do leak if you leave them somewhere long enough, & I can attest to it. So much for that advertising claim.) So I scrape away the battery salt.

Forgetting that in the olden days, these compartments sometimes had springs at the bottom. Like in a flashlight. if this had been a flashlight, I would have watched out for a spring. Anyway, the spring sprung. Sprang? Flicking battery salt right at my nearest eye.


About an hour later (OK, more like 10 minutes later) I pull my head out from under the sink tap (I'd been doing this all in the kitchen). About halfway through I'd dared to open my eye to the water. No burning or anything. So I am not going to go blind.

I am stupid, though.


Don't try this at home. Oh, I was at home.

If it makes you feel any better, the paste used in dry cell batteries is not terribly acidic; it's mostly zinc chloride and ammonium chloride. The inside paste is mostly manganese oxide. While you don't want to pump these chemicals into your eyes, they're not as horrific as, say, the acid in a wet cell.