My Larvae Lamp
By Frog
One thing I love about moving is that people get rid of good
junk. I’m always one that cannot pass up a back yard sale and when Aimee was
moving (as in her home, not in the Frickan sense) this past weekend, she was
tossing cool stuff left and right. As things were, literally, flying through
the air, I noticed a kinda half-full lava lamp in a box. Immediately I queried
as to its destiny, to which she replied that it’s mine! Nice score!
So I took this bad boy home, googled how to refill it. It
called out for distilled-water, some dish-detergent or oil (not clear, but one
article said cooking oil…hey that sounded good), then pickling-salt. I also
spent quite a bit of time, with my lovely wife as well, googling the crap out
of all sorts of Lava Lamp topics. There’s like a cult of followers…I digress.
Ok, we didn’t have distilled-water, so I figured, what the
heck, just use bottled water. Done deal. Also, no pickling-salt, but we have
sea-salt, which doesn’t have iodine. Done deal. Now for the oil or detergent.
Yep, no prob.
Experiments 1-5 involved various combinations of oil,
detergent, more salt, more oil, more salt. There were some floaters, but no
dice.
Experiments 5-10 involved me going to Walmart and searching
for the fricken Lave Liquid, which they mentioned when I spent another hour
googling that topic. I figured if I could just buy the damn stuff, screw the
chemistry lesson. They had Lava Lamps for $10 complete but I wanted mine to
work. Mistake number 45.
After experiment 10, I put the lamp aside.
Next day, in Fort Collins, I went to Target (recall google
note that they had Lava Fluid!). No fluid. Just sold out.
Party Story…nope. Another Target…nope. Another Walmart…nope.
Losing hope, I realized that Hobby Lob was coming up…nope. Dollar Store…right…
At one of the many trips trying to find Lava Fluid, I did
manage to buy some ice-cream salt. I looked everywhere for pickling-salt, so I
figured it was the same and this rock salt sure as heck doesn’t have any iodine
in it. The label said it was also good for de-icing the walk, so I figured if
it’s a bust for the lamp, at least I can salt my drive and rust out my truck. I
did manage to buy some distilled-water and drove very slow on the way home to
keep it that way.
Ok, back home I felt like Heisenberg in the meth lab as I
tinkered with bottles of water, rock salt that looked like crystal meth and
dish soap (well, two out of three aint bad).
Experients 10-15 were significantly much better, especially
when adding more salt to do something to the specific gravity of the stuff
inside…I read somewhere…anyway, it still looked like a fetus in a jar in the
museum, so no dice.
Experients 15-20 kinda went south again, even though I
cleaned out the bottle. This time the ‘lava’ didn’t look like an un-born fetus,
it looked more like a tumor that docs must look at during their coffee breaks.
I shook the bottle a bit to try and mix it, but when it foamed over the top, I
realized that the bulb below could easily throw a circuit, if not burn down my
house. Anyway, screw it.
Tomorrow I am going to Walmart and purchasing their most
expensive $20 Lava Lamp. (hey, I only got $60 worth of gas in this bad boy!)
I give up on this monster. But I must say that I fell in
love with her for some magical reason. I met many, many nice people that tried
their best throughout my travels up and down the front range. I learned a lot
about how not to do this and also how totally confusing the internet is. I’d
hate to try and build a nuclear bomb in my garage like they say you can. There
are too many options. I clearly chose all of the wrong ones!
Lava and Let Live!
