Well it isn't like they haven't seen me setting up a distillation apparatus, with the whole thing under argon (inert, unreactive gaseous element), whilst wearing a full length thick, heavy leather trenchcoat, an old one of mine I use as a labcoat, because unlike the typical thin cotton labcoats, it'll take significantly more time for something corrosive or poisonous to soak through about 2/3 of a centimeter of thick, solid leather, putting on first a set of medical-type short gloves, then fitting a set of elbow-length heavy, fairly chemical and very solvent-resistant rubber over-gloves, and sliding those over the outside of the coat sleeves, attaching them with duct tape, donning first a gas mask, changing to make sure fresh-from-pack new filter canisters were fitted in both ports, checking the valves, checking the suction whilst blocking the outside of the canisters, before donning first goggles then a full-face blast shield, before starting to get to work on something involving a big flask of industrial-grade concentrated hypochlorite bleach, several gallons of fuming hydrochloric acid, a condenser packed with iodine, and unfortunately, having to replace the plastic keck-clips I had at the time (I since, now, have stainless steel ones, but couldn't have used them anyway with that) and then starting to pump chlorine gas in through the column packed with lumps of iodine, the entire setup first being thoroughly dried, then purged with argon, and a fairly intricate DIY-ed setup for a suck-back arrester and then outlet for any and all fumes into a saturated sodium carbonate solution, using one-way valves, and wrapping a lot of things in a LOT of teflon tape. All the while looking like something you'd expect to see in a movie featuring something like a special forces chemical weapons response team member, only with a gas tank in his hand rather than a silenced MP5 submachinegun, breathing with a sound reminiscent of darth vader.
I may be Kanner's, but even I can realize that that is not, what one would call a particularly subtle set of apparel. And if it was to be taken as such, the all-glass syringe for harvesting the product, without any rubber, plastic or metal parts, along with a teflon-tape-wrapped (and heavily so) chemically resistant glass (possibly fused quartz, not sure, pigs left them here once) and they have both a teflon (or something like it, that is HIGHLY resistant to the nastiest, most aggressive things I've ever been able to expose the plastic part to, but an under-cap flexi-seal too, so with pressure applied by tightening, it locks vapors in, and it too is resistant as hell to acids, bases, solvents and some pretty brutal oxidizers and some strong, highly alkaline reducing agents, as well as halogens, and whats more, keep them in there) Only have a few of those bottles but they are damn useful for keeping the very most virulent of the things I have in the lab tightly secured, put in the chemical fridge, and they stay there once so put, with a big skull-and-crossbones and the words 'WARNING! AIR AND WATER SENSITIVE! REACTS VIOLENTLY, TOXIC, CORROSIVE' on the side, and a smaller skull-and-crossbones inked on the top of the cap. That would have probably given the game away so to speak if nothing about the hazmat gear did:P
And for the most dangerous kinds of things I end up making or using, I tend to do such work in the dead of night, outside on a portable folding bench and a long steel adjustable microphone stand for securing things to, precisely because I cannot afford for, and wouldn't stand for the neighbors being exposed to dangerous or potentially/likely lethal chemicals.
Although some of the things I have done at fr.ex 5AM-6AM with a microwave, a vacuum pump and various glassware, or else a big power supply (about 35-36 amps, the old one I had that died/got murdered), a crucible full of searing hot molten caustic, a tank of inert gas and a bath of molten lead, plus the obligatory face shield, goggles, gloves, heavy coat, pairs of tongs, a blowtorch plus a couple of wires with a pair of nickel rods attached to the ends as electrodes, accompanied by showers of sparks and bright orange or purple flames (depending on whether it was sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide in the crucible sat in the molten lead bath) and a CRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACK! noise like machinegun fire, as the odd (well quite frequently actually) bits of molten sodium or potassium metal touched some stray air and blasted themselves either around the kitchen or over the garden in trails of hissing, spitting, crackling popping molten and flaming metal. And more than a few fairly loud THUMP! noises when I tried a couple of times to make NaK alloy (succeeded in making it but couldn't isolate it with the setup I was using at the time, too reactive and just ignited the millisecond it rose above the bath of molten mixed caustic soda and caustic potash)
And lol CBC. Not got music on atm, but doing something similar just getting into a new and interesting good book, accompanied by some oxy, and a wee shot of morphine to top it off, all potentiated by the chlormethiazole I take to prevent seizures and the clonidine I use for stopping overloads or lessening their impact, plus the tizanidine I use as a muscle relaxer (its similar to clonidine but a far more powerful muscle relaxant). Eyelids are drooping a fair bit already. And I reckon before my appt with the eye hospital to check the burn I took to one of my eyeballs a while back thanks to the fucking pork, I've just enough time to finish the cold one I'm slurping away at and perhaps a half corona cigar on the way in the car.
Hell, might even have time for another beer in fact.
