Remember when glass thermometers broke and instead of calling the hazmat team and shutting things down, we played with the mercury that spilled out into little balls, and we touched the mercury balls with our hands!!
Yup - and I remember making rocket fuel in our high school chemistry class and launching the rockets afterward from a vacant lot nearby, with an occasional mislaunch where the rocket blew up just after launch or worse, tipped over and headed for somebody’s house.
YES! Saw your comment after I posted my own. Fun times!
There still are a few of those mercury thermometers at the family homestead where Mom lives. They’re the only ones whose results I trust. The digital ones are a joke.
And, yes, we used to play with the mercury balls when they broke.