Dust

One tends to think of dust as a passive thing. It just sits there, doesn't do anything, and simply waits to be vacuumed up or brushed away.

This is, of course, not the case. Dust gathers. Any kind of disturbance is met with the same response - it lifts up into the air and makes its attacker sneeze.

I discovered this earlier today while vacuuming my room. The sneezing has now, by and large, stopped, but I still have the nagging distrust of the flat surfaces around me...

I also ended up giving my desk something approaching a proper clean, wiping away the odd sticky patches (which turn dust into grime) and, by chance, discovering an exploded battery. I knew the battery was there and, in fact, I'd picked up the exploded end cap a couple of weeks ago (wondering what on earth it could be - a small blunt metal pin with a comparatively large flat head, covered in grey, vaguely crystalline gunk), but only figured out what had happened when I moved the cardboard battery pack out from under my printer. The bottom of the last remaining battery was missing, and inside was a lump of grey, vaguely crystalline gunk. The underside of the printer is coated with the same grey, vaguely crystalline gunk.

No idea when it exploded, but I'm pretty sure it would have made some kind of popping sound, not to mention the metallic skittering of the end cap as it bounced underneath the printer and out toward the window.

Strange... Not least because I don't understand why that would happen. Sure, batteries aren't perfectly inert while in storage... but this thing had just been sitting around unused... You don't tend to see them explode on the shelves, do you?

I shall be popping off to Uxbridge a little later than originally hoped. I suspect I shall grab myself a sandwich or two before I go, considering it's now close to 1pm...