Marvin the Mole.

I have no idea what made me think of it, but Marvin the Mole just popped into my head. Marvin was the anthropomorphic rodent that my high school chemistry teacher used to help my sophomore chemistry class understand the concept of the mole (6.022 x 10^23 molecules of a substance). It's really not that difficult to understand if you think of it like a dozen. A dozen = twelve, a mole = 6.022 x 10^23 (that's Avogadro's Number by the way). Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

I'm actually not sure why Mr. Korin introduced Marvin. But sophomores will be sophomores, and it wasn't too far into stoichiometry that poor Marvin became "Marvin da ho-mo mole." Whenever Korin would start to talk about a mole of this or a mole of that, someone--usually one of the boys on the football team--would squeak "Marvin da ho-mo mole." Poor Korin would flush bright red and try to ignore them. He actually took a LOT of crap from the kids in my class that year and the next year when I took AP chemistry.

A favorite saying in AP was "Bend over, I'll show ya." The class was mixed juniors and seniors, but mostly seniors and boy did they torture Korin. He got them back one day during lab though. One of the usual suspects made the mistake of saying "What's this thermometer for?" and Korin quickly replied "Bend over, I'll show ya."

I suppose that kind of thing wouldn't be tolerated these days. Maybe I should change the names to protect the innocent.

What was I doing while all this was going on? Mostly trying to ignore it. I didn't mind Mr. Korin, and I loved chemistry and I was good at it. I tutored chem in college. One of my drunk tricks is that I can still derive the Henderson-Hasselbach equation.

Hey! After a little Googling, I discovered that Marvin was not the personal invention of my high school chemistry teacher. He even has his own day! (Marvin, that is, not Korin.) Who knew?

And speaking of moles, I love Trader Joe's Avocado's Number guacomole. Get it? Guaco-mole? Avocado's Number? They are so clever!