Measure twice, cut once (and the crab that time forgot).

Building an aquarium system this last week has had its ups and its downs. Sometimes I feel happy with my day’s practical work, and get a sense of satisfaction in creating something physical rather than just reading papers or playing in the lab. Other times it goes unbelievably wrong and I look very unprofessional when I find myself laughing at things that aren’t really very funny.

Yesterday morning we had to cut the main air feed into the aquarium, take out an unused junction, and reconnect it back up. We measured the diameter of the pipes (I’m using ‘we’ here to dilute the blame, obviously), got two straight connectors for either end, and cut a bit of pipe long enough to join up the two connectors. Easy.

I did get slightly nervous when I felt that there was so much pressure in the main air-line it was hot to the touch. Then the distant vibrations of the compressor transferring into my hand began to stir up further worries in the back of my mind. Unfortunately, these instincts were quelled by the ‘it’ll be fine’ thought that was currently on a hot streak of form in my frontal lobes, and kept putting a hat-trick past the doubts every time they got up to anywhere near actionable strength.

I took the trusty saw in hand and began to cut. Once the blade had breached the pipe interior the noise began and this soon rose up to the level the Killers attained when on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury (Yes! back of the net for that topical reference! I thank you). The resonating woodwind-type whistle got lower as the saw cut deeper, but was regularly interrupted as the motion of cutting blocked then let through the escaping air. I was making air-line music, so loud it shook me to the bone. It reminded me of being at playschool as a child and blowing raspberries down a long cardboard tube, which amplified the noises I was making and led to about a year’s solid entertainment. This time, the tube was much longer and wider, and the mechanical blower had the power of hurricane Katrina.

I finally got all the way through, and with my stress response in full fling I frantically tried to push the connector onto the pipe.

It wouldn’t fit.

Oh total bollocks.

I madly cleaned away the rough bits of plastic left on the cut edges and tried again.

No. Too big.

Double total bollocks.

Cue ten seconds of doing that looking around in disbelief thing, hoping you’re about to wake up. This changed into some not fully committed laughing (which although inappropriate, was better than the other available option). We then managed to find some duct tape (crikey thanks for duct tape) and after wrapping three quarters of the roll around the cut managed to block off most of the escaping air. Then by a mighty stroke of luck, a random connector lying about in the ‘bits and pieces’ box fitted both the thicker and slightly thinner pipes, and our noisy fuck up was finally silenced for good.

While having a tidy up, we moved a long trough of rubbish away from our side of the room which had been there since the beginning of time. We uncovered a dead, mouldy mouse, and more interestingly the remains of a dead crab.

Despite his collapsed shell, it was still easy to see his classic crab pose, wedged backwards into a slight hole, with claws at the ready, saying, ‘im a crab, I dare you to disrespect my personal space.’ He must have got out and thought, ‘shit, its nice to be out of that tank, but it ain’t very wet out here, or salty, for that matter.' Then a few days later he must have thought, ‘oh shit, I appear to be dead’

Where he came from is a bit of a mystery- they’ve kept crabs in the aquarium before, but nothing as big as this guy, and none have gone missing (they have, by all accounts a crab register (imagine them waving their claws from the back of the class, ‘Here Miss!)). They do have some on the sixth floor, but how on earth would he reach the lift buttons?