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| Courtesy of Simon Howden at FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
I’m at an age when I occasionally engage in life reviews,
reflecting on my 56 years of meandering while trying to make sense of it all.
In particular, I’ve ruminated on those times – rather more than you might think
– where my actions have endangered life, either my own or that of others. One
example of the former took place in the bathroom of my parents’ home 46 years
ago.
As a 10 years old, I displayed an inquisitive mind; “why?”,
“how?” and “what if?” were recurrent questions when faced with new situations
or novel snippets of information. The brightly coloured bottles of bleach and toilet
cleaners that lurked behind our lavatory had long since attracted my attention,
particular that skull-and- crossbones warning about toxicity. So one afternoon,
while I was home alone, I decided to investigate what all the fuss was about.
I picked up the “Domestic Thick Bleach” and “Ajax Powder”
and proceeded to read the warnings on the two toilet cleaners:
Do not ingest – I
looked up “ingest” in my pocket dictionary. Eating or drinking toilet cleaner!
Did they think we’re all stupid or something?
Avoid contact with the
skin and eyes – Fair enough; even as a young boy, I assumed that spillage
on bodily parts might sting.
If accidentally
swallowed, contact a doctor as a matter of urgency – I did wonder whether
anyone would still have the power of speech to call emergency services in such
a scenario.
Do not, under any
circumstances, mix with other toilet cleaners – This warning intrigued me,
triggering all my “Why?” and “What if?” queries. Frustratingly, no explanation
was offered on the bottles. The labels’ failure to inform, along with my
emerging interest in science, conspired to motivate me to conduct an in-house
chemistry experiment.
I inserted the plastic plug into the bathroom washbasin and sprinkled
a few layers of Ajax powder into the porcelain bowl. As I reached for the
Domestos, my pulse accelerated with the excitement of discovery. I removed the
red cap (the child-proof variety had yet to be invented), dispensed a few
generous splashes of the viscous liquid onto the powder in the washbasin, and
leant over to observe.
At first nothing happened and I recall feeling a sense of
anticlimax. But then the mixture started to hiss, spit and bubble, while
emitting a vapour which spiralled upwards towards my overhanging nostrils. The
initial snort knocked me backwards, and I had to steady myself on the side of
the bath. The bathroom filled with a dense fog. My legs crumpled and my
breathing became laboured. In a daze, I crawled out of the bathroom on my hands
and knees to reach safety.
Subsequently, I learnt that the green-white vapour was
chlorine, one of the first poisonous gases to be used in warfare. My ad-hoc
chemistry experiment had inadvertently transformed the family bathroom into a
trench in the midst of the battle of Ypres in 1914.
By the time my parents returned, the chemical reaction had
fizzled out. They said they could detect a stale smell throughout the house and
accused me of smoking. I claimed that one of our neighbours had been burning
rubbish in their garden and that this must be the source of the pong. They
seemed to believe me; after all, it was a more plausible tale than the idea of
some lunatic mixing toilet cleaners in the bathroom washbasin!
