Monday, July 2, 2012
Biohazard Specimen Label
The talented Jay Knioum brings us this handy biohazard label. The full sized version available at the link is sized to fit an Avery 8126 mailing label. Pro Tip: Obey all traffic laws if you happen to have a few props with prominent biohazard labels in your vehicle. I speak from personal experience.
Now that is a story I would love to hear.
ReplyDelete@ Halcyon
ReplyDeleteImagine that you're a cop. One morning at around 3:30 AM you pull over a van with a burned out driver side headlight. While talking with the driver you do a normal scan of the interior with your flashlight and see something...odd...sitting in the back seat. A large, cylindrical device that looks like it might be a piece of lab equipment. And it has biohazard markings on it.
Hilarity, as they say, ensued.
The day was November 4th and the odd device in my backseat was a Halloween prop. A slightly customized vintage Sanitizor vacuum cleaner, sans attachments and hose, that I'd loaned a friend for his Halloween display. If you're not familiar with the wonderful retro styling of the Sanitizor here's an Ebay auction that has some great pictures-
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Deco-1940s-Machine-Age-Air-Way-Sanitizor-Vacuum-Cleaner-Streamlined-/230745757835
Gorgeous, isn't it? Take away the hose and it looks like some infernal device you would find in a mad scientist's lab. That's exactly why I was using it as a prop, and the reason two village police cars and a state trooper ended up at my routine traffic stop.
Things were a bit tense for about half an hour, but once they realized I *wasn't* a crazed bio-terrorist many laughs were had. Oh, and I got off with a warning about the headlight.
Now had you been in costume with Pizza Hut tablecloth headgear, sunglasses and speaking in broken English, things might have gotten ugly. That and an undulating cry might have gotten you a booking and then perhaps a laugh much later. Yallah, yallah abicim!
ReplyDelete@ CoastConFan
ReplyDeleteMy unusual name didn't help things. To them I was some random guy with a weird, consonant heavy, "foreign" sounding name.
And then I told them my air name.
The whole reason I was out at that hour is because I was doing a morning radio show at the time. They knew *that* person, since they'd heard him on the air. Sadly, I couldn't convince them based on my voice alone. This was before smartphones, so they had someone on the other end of the police radio browse the station website, look at a picture of the DJ I claimed to be, and see if my description matched.
That was one of the very few times I was happy to be recognized.
I'm glad to know that the front lines against Bond-villain-grade bioterrorism consists of two "village cops" and a state trooper. I shudder to speculate what their biology grades were, too :O
ReplyDeleteBut for serious, take it from someone whose biology grades were good enough to get him an MSc in biology... if you ever, ever throw this stuff away... thoroughly erase or deface that big scary trefoil and the word "biohazardous". Somebody will take it seriously if they see it in the trash. Mostly because of lazy lab workers who sometimes just throw away things they really should arrange to have incinerated :P
Anyway great blog as usual, sorry to go all Doctor Serious on this post.
Bygosh, look Officer O’Leery, that yon dacoit is toting an infernal device! Halt posthaste, miscreant, your foul deed has been thwarted by the vigilant crime fighters of The Bugtussle constabulary. The U. S. of A. is saved once again. Hurrah!
ReplyDeleteWow. I would have bet heavily that the village cops would have known you.
ReplyDeleteGreat story. Thanks for the promo. I love seeing where this stuff ends up.
ReplyDelete