Mercury Rising

Here's a picture of some Canada geese who belly up to the all-u-can-eat buffet frequent my mother's back yard in search of corn. They don't have to search very hard.

My mother spends a large part of her day tending to geese, ducks, dogs and my father cats, but the most difficult challenge involves herding Gustav the goose in and out of his pen each day. This requires quick reflexes, lots of flailing arm movements, the skills of a snake charmer and fast-moving feet.

Recently as I observed the daily goose-herding scene unfold, I flashed back to another similar childhood horror incident involving almost identical motions.

I remembered my mother chasing mercury from a broken glass thermometer.

Remember glass? Remember when everything was made of glass instead of plastic?

Once upon a time, thermometers were made of glass, very fragile glass, and they contained mercury. Lethal, deadly mercury.

At least according to Chesapeake Bay Mother.

These glass thermometers were so fragile that a feverish child could snap one in two with one hand. Or somehow or another the thermometer would end up shattered in the floor. For example.

The breaking of a thermometer back in our house in those days set off a chain of events that included screaming, hollering, fear, panic and herding. A tiny drop of mercury the size of a needle in a haystack would bounce from the broken thermometer to the floor to the walls to Jupiter our central nervous systems.

At least according to Chesapeake Bay Mother.

As I recall, there was much ado about nothing. Because to the best of my knowledge that mercury never was caught. She either opened the door and let it bounce out or it landed squarely on our dinner plates where we proceeded to swallow it while chewing with our mercury-filled teeth.

Was the Chesapeake Bay Family the only one to chase mercury until it fled the county and bounced into the next state until it was safely out of the house, sprinting towards the bay? Or is this a case of overreacting, like the time when Chesapeake Bay Mother had us guzzling syrup of Ipecac because she thought we had trichinosis after I served up some Gunnoes sausage that, while blackened on the outside, may have been slightly rare on the inside?

Just wondering.