Science Jokes

Chemistry Christmas




'Twas the night before Christmas,

The lab was quite still;

Not a Bunsen was burning

(Nor had they the will).

The test tubes were placed

In their racks with great care,

In hopes Father Chemistry

Soon would be there.




The students were sleeping

So sound in their dorms,

All dreaming of fluids

And Crystalline forms.

Lab-Aids in their aprons

And I in my smock.




When outside the lab

There arose such a roar

I leaped from my stool

And fell flat on the floor.

Out ot the fire escape

All of us flew.

What was the commotion?

Not one of knew.




The flood-lights shone out

O're the campus so bright

It looked like old Stockholm

On Nobel Prize Night.

My fume-blinded eyes

Then viewed (dare I say?)

Eight anions pulling

A water-trough sleigh.




And holding the bonds

Tied to each one of them

Was a figure I knew

As our own Papa Chem.

With speeds in excess

Of most X-rays they came.

As they Dopplered along

He called each one by name.




"Now Nitrite, now Phosphate,

Now Borate, now Chloride

On Citrate, on Bromate,

On Sulfite and Oxide.




Forget what you know

Of that randomness stuff,

Let's go straight to that roof,

If you've quanta enough."




As fluids Bernoullian

Behave in a pinch,

Those ions said "Alchemist

This is a cinch."

So up to the lab-roof

Those "chargers" they sped

With Pop Chemistry safe

In his water-trough sled.




Just a microsec later

Electroscopes showed

Charged particles coming

To our lab abode

We raced back inside,

And what d'ya think?

Down the fume-hood Pop Chem fell,

Right into the sink.




He was dressed in a lab-coat,

Quite ragged and old,

With removable buttons

(The style, we're told)

A tray-full of beakers

He clutched to his heart--

And under his arm

Was an orbital chart.




His eyes through his goggles

I just couldn't see

His hands were all yellow

From H-N-O-3.

His head was quite bald

With a fringe all around

Like a ring test for iron,

That same shade of brown.




He puffed a cigar

With a smell not at all

Unlike the organic lab

Right down the hall.

The smoke billowed forth

From his angular face

And with Brownian Movement

Enveloped the place.




He was thin as a match

And not terribly tall

He wasn't the type

I'd expected at all

But a look at his clothes,

In the lab's harsh white light,

With their acid-burn holes--

He's a chemist all right!




He didn't say much

(He had no time to kill)

And filled all the test tubes

With nary a spill.

Then placing them bak

On the benches with care

He dashed to the fume-hood

And rose through the air.




He called to his team

And his ions took off

And kinetics took care

Of Pop Chem and his trough,

But I heard him cry out

As he flew down the street

"Merry Holidays to all!

May your stockrooms stay neat!"