Mercurious Mad Hatters

A few years ago, I posted about Mercury. Read that here (if you are bored.)

Then, today I was teaching science classes ALL DAY and learned some more about the role of mercury. Seventh graders were putting together a book about the elements from the periodic table. I know nothing about this really except that the symbol for gold is Au. I was teaching them how to write a narrative about their element. We mini-lessoned it up, and then as they were working, this kid told me all about mercury and its role in making hatters mad. Yes, as in THE mad hatter from Alice in Wonderland. Apparently, hat makers inhaled/absorbed mercury in the process of hat making and this made them "mad" or crazy or whatever. Hence, the name. I wikipediaed it just to check. Here's an article if you are interested. I love that seventh graders teach me things.

The thing I love the most though is that all day I held onto this tidbit of information just waiting to get home and tell Will while we ate dinner. If you know Will, you know he is full of random facts. If you ever think you know a fact and you share it with Will, he quickly tells you why you're wrong and spouts off the "correct" information. This is either endearing or annoying depending on your mood. I just knew he wouldn't know about mad hatters and mercury because surely after all these years he would have told me about that. We even watched Alice together and no mention of mercury. So, at dinner I sprung this shocking news about mercury on him, and he said, "Um, I think it's lead not mercury. Who told you that?" I responded, "A seventh grade boy." He responded, "Oh. It's definitely lead." Thank goodness there is always a laptop on the kitchen table. After a quick google search, it was confirmed to be mercury. What this means:

I WIN! I WIN! I WIN!

I don't ever get to win in the random information game that I've been playing with my husband since I met him in 2003.

I WIN!