When I first moved into my parents' house after inheriting it, I was going through things in the bedroom and found, on top of a bookcase, a plastic chemistry bottle two thirds full of mercury.

Needless to say, I about shit.

I told my sister, who said "Why worry about it? It's probably been there for decades. Maybe put it in a glass jar- it's so pretty."

I had nightmare visions of that shit spilling, getting to the basement, seeping through the floor and into the water table. That would have poisoned the lake and everything downstream of us and made the house a superfund site.

Fortunately my brother in law went to Cornell and was able to take it to the chemistry department. I was vastly relieved to have it off my hands.

That just left the WWII .45 with the numbers ground off...

Mercury, sweetest of the transition metals.

Things were better in the old days.

Mercury. Is there anything it can't do? ;-)

Be solid at room temperature?

"Irritability, low self-confidence, depression, apathy, shyness, timidity, and in some cases delirium and memory loss are seen."

Turns out I've got mercury poisoning.

Stop making hats.