Finish the Grignard with Chris

“Taking my advice to heart,” Chris smiles. “I approve.”

“After that whole lecture, I figured it would be disrespectful to work with one of the girls. It would be like I hadn’t listened to you at all,” you say.

“And a good thing that you listened,” Chris nods. “Women are like fine wine. Good things come to those with patience.”

“I didn’t take you for a wine guy,” you say, as the two of you go retrieve the vial you put into storage last week.

“I am when the occasion calls for it. But the shitty rosé that you find at most parties around here? Get outta here,” he laughs, waving a hand.

The two of you return to your lab bench, working quickly and efficiently. After rinsing the vial a couple times with ether and lightly shaking it, it’s separated into a dark red ether layer on top and a clear layer on the bottom.

“So, next up. We’ve got to reduce the iodine to iodine ions,” you say.

“The ether layer’s supposed to be a pale yellow, not this shade of red,” Chris agrees. “Means we’ve got to wash it in a solution of…”

“Sodium bisulfate,” you say, just as Chris says: “Sodium metabisulfate.”

The two of you stare at each other for a second, working it out in your heads, and then you both crack a wide smile.

“Same idea, different execution,” Chris chuckles.

“Not so different in execution,” you smile. “I’ll grab some metabisulfate.”

“We’ll need a bunch of salts,” Chris says. “You should get them in one go.”

“It’s sodium bicarbonate next, so I’ll pick that up too,” you agree.

“And then good ol’ NaCl,” Chris says, rounding out the list. “You’ll have your hands full.”

“So long as I’m not the one pipetting all day,” you say. “I can’t think of a worse job than that.”

“Have you heard of titration, my guy?” Chris laughs, patting you on the back as you head off to pick up more supplies.

The next several steps of the lab fly by as you and Chris work in tandem, washing the mixture with each of the aqueous solutions in turn, then gently shaking the vial to separate the ether layer out and removing the excess water to a waste beaker. By the time you’ve transferred the ether mixture into a larger beaker and begun swirling in some anhydrous sodium sulfate, you finally give in to the urge to glance over at Jess and Sam.

“They’ve checked us out a couple times,” Chris says in a low voice. “They’re probably wonderin’ why we aren’t all over them like we were last week.”

“So you think we made the right call?” you wonder.

“You bet. We let them stew, simmer long and nice, let the flavour really seep in. How do you think that ass gets so juicy?” Chris smiles.

“I thought you said women were like fine wine,” you say. “What’s with the stew now?”

“Just getting hungry,” Chris says. “How’s there still more than two hours before we get out of here?”

“I’ve still got soccer practice after this,” you sigh. “Don’t remind me of food.”

“So no hotplate next?” Chris chuckles as the two of you begin decanting the remaining ether solution.

“Hairdryer’s more fun anyways,” you say.

“Can’t argue with that,” Chris agrees.

Soon, you’ve got the hairdryer blaring away as you work on evaporating the ether. The noise draws stares from all around the lab, hot girls included, and you take it as a point of pride.

“We’re the fastest again,” you say, glancing around at most of the lab partnerships still fumbling around with their pipettes.

“Jess and Sam are doing surprisingly well,” Chris notes.

“Huh, yeah, they’re not too far behind us,” you say.

“This stuff’s also easier than last week’s,” Chris shrugs.

Before long, you’ve added a bit of hexane to the crude product in the beaker, and with a stirring rod, you begin to triturate the oily mixture in order to extract the biphenyl from the triphenylmethanol that you’re after.

“Just the filter and we’ve got the product,” you say, passing the beaker over to Chris, who’s got the vacuum filter ready to go.

“They want purity too,” Chris says.

“I’ll get the Fisher-Johns set up,” you nod. “It’s really such a waste. So much effort to eke out that bit of product, only to melt it down again.”

“It’s twisted, man,” Chris laughs. “Let’s just hope that’s not a metaphor for women too.”

In the remaining two hours of lab, you manage to finish off the lab and write up the entire lab report, laughing and joking with Chris the whole time. The two of you truly are a super-team—the TA described the lab report as a multi-hour grind that would likely have to be completed at home, but you and Chris hand yours in before the bell rings, leaving a very slack-jawed TA behind you. And though the two of you exchanged no words with Jess and Sam over the three hours, from the envious looks they shoot you as you head out of the lab, you figure you must have done something right.

Chris +15