Mrs. Dahl: Lab Rat

Still basking in the glow of playing paleontologist on my recent dinosaur safari, I jumped at the invitation to enter the bowels of our state Historic Society museum and home for the North Dakota State Geologic Survey, to volunteer my services for the morning.

I must have been more excited than I realized.  I could not get my eyeballs to stay shut the night before.  And when I finally did enter the Land of Nod, I couldn’t stay asleep.  Mr. Annoying Alarm Clock started playing Journey right when I had asked him to the night before.  It wasn’t even hard to haul my aging carcass out of bed.  I was awake and rarin’ to go.  Adventure awaited.  I love adventure!

Reporting to the main office, I was handed a visitor pass and escorted to the fossil lab by one of the three state paleontologists.  Becky welcomed me warmly and guided me down and through and around the labyrinth of corridors. 

Super Sassy?? How did they know?

Our state legislature had approved funds a couple of sessions ago for a major expansion of the impressive building located on our state capital grounds that houses all the Historical Society’s artifacts, its business offices, and the newly expanded and world-class museum. Although open to the public, it isn’t even completed yet.  It is going to be spectacular.  Wandering around the cinder block portion restricted to the public, I felt like a fan with a coveted backstage pass. 

When we stopped in front of the massive doors of the paleontology unit, I gawked like a love-struck seventh grade boy at the retinal scan machine by the doors.  This is movie stuff!  We stepped into the suite and Becky methodically gave me a fascinating and comprehensive tour.  Good gracious, it was glorious to have access to the priceless finds housed in that space.  We walked past massive tibias and teeth and turtle shells.  Some were cleaned and waiting for permanent storage, others still covered in their original organic matter and waiting for loving attention.

A chunk of Triceratops they've been working on for 40 years!

Sea Turtle shell

The lab itself made my jaw drop to the cement floor.  The contrast of high-tech security and simple tools stood in stark contrast to one another.  The ceiling lights on motion censors, the bucket of plain-old-Grandma’s-kitchen baking soda used in the micro blaster, the microscopes and cheap paintbrushes and bent dental picks all added to the air of careful chaos that permeated the very air.  Dusty lab coats hung thickly on a rack, plaster-casted fossils were stacked everywhere, and the biggest smile-generator of all… a plastic bag with my name on it sitting in the cupboard – fossils I had uncovered in the Badlands two weeks ago.  So they hadn’t dumped out my precious finds after all.  So cool.  I rock.

Micro Blaster station

Um..... maybe there IS a hidden Jurassic Park

Look what I found!?

My work station

Becky handed me a double-headed pick – the kind your dental hygienist tortures you with – and a tray of small bones.  My job was to clean them as gently and thoroughly as possible before they entered the micro blaster chamber – a job I am determined to work my way up to.  Then she left me alone to work on the menial tasks that overwhelm her precious time and energies.  I put in my ear buds, cranked iTunes, and set to work, happily removing eons of filth from irreplaceable items.  I was a little terrified, to be honest.  What if I broke something or threw some rare find away?  Eeek.  Really, what were they thinking allowing me access to this National Treasure vault in the first place?  The were no questions on the application pertaining clumsiness.  I would have had to answer YES in bold red letters.  Are they insane? Am I?? 

Calm down, sister, and take a deep breath…

The time went incredibly fast.  I felt it such a privilege to be there, to be useful to my state and my beloved field of science.  Yeah, you can say it.  I am geek.

I want to go back.  I WILL go back.  I asked Becky if the schedule she deposited in Google Docs for me was indeed the entirety of the department’s volunteer roster.  Seven??  That’s it for all the buckets and drawers and plaster-casted jewels from the field? 

Good grief, they NEED me.

Time will be problematic with the advent of a new school year, but somehow someway I will try to lend a hand on something of sporadic, consistent basis.

And so…..

When my fresh crop of Darlings open their science books for the first time this year and I ask them, “First Graders, what do you think a scientist looks like?”  I can answer with complete candor (and a crooked little smile), “A scientist looks a lot like me”….