American Idol, Chemistry-Style

I have to preface this post by saying that my new office is in a chemistry lab. I'm not physically in the lab, but I am in the office space next to one. And the door between my office area and the lab leaves about a 2 inch gap at the floor. So I can hear (and smell) everything that goes on in there.

Which brings me to the conversation I overheard earlier this week.

Several graduate students were in the lab and I thought I heard a guitar. I took my rather painful earbuds out of my ears and confirmed that yes, indeed, there was a guitar in the next room. A guitar in the lab, in fact. And not just one guitar, but I believe there were two. And horror of horrors, there was singing. Bad singing. By Chemistry graduate students. When the singing stopped, the discussion of the merits of the previous night's episode of Americal Idol began. A little more guitar strumming started before I threw my headphones back on and turned up the first thing I could find in iTunes. I'm pretty sure this now emcompasses my own little first level of hell: Chemistry students (badly) singing (bad) pop songs in the lab while accompanied (poorly) by other graduate students on the guitar.