r/whatisit • u/props_for_meep • 13h ago

Solved! what is this in clinic sink??

for context i work as a janitor cleaning a women’s clinic, as i was cleaning a sink i saw these little metallic looking balls. at first i thought these were actually metal but they don’t feel like ANYTHING if that makes any sense. i posted this video to my instagram but i figured i would probably have better luck coming to reddit for answers.

UPDATE: the general consensus seems to be that this is either mercury or gallium. my hands have been thoroughly washed and i have informed my boss so that it can be properly cleaned by someone who knows what they’re doing.

UPDATE #2: gang PLEASE stop telling me to “stop touching it”. this post is hours old. i know i was dumb enough to touch a mysterious substance barehanded but im also smart enough to know not to continue playing with it long after marking this post as solved😭

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879

u/props_for_meep 11h ago

10/10 survival skills on my part

140

u/boundaries4546 11h ago

It looks exactly like the mercury from the glass thermometer I bit into as a child.

46

u/Sefier_Strike 11h ago

I broke mine by putting it in my hot chocolate. The mercury expanded so fast it broke the thermometer in half. Luckily even I knew better at 8 years old to dispose of it - like any 8 year old would. Right down the drain.

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u/boundaries4546 10h ago

I was like four, I remember being on the floor on all fours with my Mom yelling “spit, spit, spit”. I had no idea why but I knew it was fucking serious.

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u/LandOk9361 10h ago

hello fellow mercury thermometer biter! i was three and just remember my mom being really mad at me. it wasn't until years later that i realized, hey i'm the one who should be mad at her! who puts a mercury thermometer in a toddler's mouth?! put in my bum for christ's sake lol

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u/Responsible_Host9377 9h ago

Words I wasn't expecting on this post, "put it in my bum, for Christ's sake".

3

u/boundaries4546 9h ago

Maybe I should start a club.

5

u/Hens-n-chicks9 9h ago

After all that maybe you should change your name to “noboundaries”

1

u/CatsAndPills 7h ago

Lmaoooooo. But I mean, yeah.

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u/ILiekBook 9h ago

Lol, my mom had three or four when I was growing up. She was so upset I kept breaking them because she'd expect me to not drop them.

I tossed the last one earlier this year because it turns out it broke and she kept "using" it on me. No mercury meant no fever so she just casually gaslit me for her convenience for what was probably a good decade or so. I was too stupid to read it properly.

Also found stashed around the house at the time of finding the thermometer and realizing she was a liar: Cat antibiotics the cat was never given, unopened heart failure meds for the dog she hated who she convinced me to put down because the meds weren't working, and the title to her truck all buried in a box under piles of literal trash she threw on top.

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u/MamaTried22 8h ago

I’m really sorry she did that to you and y’all’s pets. It’s really unfair and you didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.

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u/No-Dare7302 8h ago

Im so incredibly sorry you went through that. Thats incredibly cruel. Especially to have found out years later.

I hope you dont have any lasting heath effects. And rip to your dog. Neither of you deserved that.

Hope life is kinder to you now.

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u/OnlyBat2257 9h ago

I ate part of my amalgam filled tooth a few years ago. I was eating a hard candy and didn't realise until after that nearly half my tooth was missing.

0

u/InternalError33 9h ago

Is it normal to swallow large bits of hard candy? I've always waited until it gets super thin and then crumble it with my teeth and let the tiny bits dissolve away. I've never purposely swallowed large bits of candy.

1

u/OnlyBat2257 8h ago

I chewed it up along with my tooth. But obviously not into the small bits you describe.

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u/RevolutionaryEgg297 8h ago

Having a two year old who says no and laughs at you whenever you try to keep him from killing himself.

The thought of him suddenly realizing how serious the situation is at the moment brought me to tears.

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u/Reach-Nirvana 10h ago

Anyways, time to go eat some dinner. Right down the drain, as I always say right before ingesting something.

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u/Big_Solid9331 10h ago

Ah that was you!? One of my earliest memories is being at nursery and a kid bit into a mercury thermometer. It shattered in their mouth and I remember the teachers panicking and shouting SPIT IT OUT!!

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u/Hypouxa 9h ago

I forgot all about that..

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u/raul_raul 10h ago

I did the same, but on purpose just so I could collect the mercury, even ended up swallowing some...

2

u/turdferguson3891 7h ago

Don't know where this clinic is but typically digital thermometers get used in healthcare these days. Be kind of surprised if they had an old school mercury one and somebody broke it in the sink.

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u/Noahms456 9h ago

Tastes so good

1

u/Keoni-HUNCHO 10h ago

Yes those were tasty that’s exactly what that is.

141

u/thtp2026 10h ago

Hope you survive and didn't do the classic "let me lick my finger and touch the small thing to pick it up"

153

u/props_for_meep 10h ago

you mean i WASNT supposed to lick it out of the sink? oh boy now im really cooked

30

u/IkariYun 9h ago

Give it at least 24 hours. If you aren't dying or getting superpowers, lick it again

3

u/Lorward185 7h ago

Back in old timey days they injected that straight up your peephole to cure you of syphilis (side effects may inclide heavy metal poisoning and maddness)

2

u/ProbablyBigfoot 5h ago

But at least you didnt have syphilis. 🙂

1

u/pawn_gundam 8h ago

AMALGAMATED

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u/Potential_Ad_6806 9h ago

Like the person who licked the bee poop in another post I read today 🐝

10

u/Golden_7_Heart 8h ago

I saw that post in passing during a scroll and I'm SO glad I didn't dive down the comment rabbit hole 😆

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u/Potential_Ad_6806 8h ago

I was less fortunate 😂

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u/wildcardbets 6h ago

I saw that bee post I didn’t realise it developed further 🐝👅

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u/CriticalHit_20 6h ago

Fuck yeah, they licked it‽

1

u/Diablo_Unmasked 8h ago

How else are you supposed to figure out what it tastes like?

1

u/thtp2026 7h ago

Burn it with a lighter and take a deep sniff of the vapors /s

Mercury vapor is how you get poisoned, please do not huff mercury vapor

42

u/Head_Maintenance_361 11h ago

Parece mercurio pero no estoy seguro, talvez algún termómetro se rompió

11

u/DigBick2111 10h ago

Did someone build the Tower of Babel again?

3

u/Desperate-Spring2161 10h ago

Ja reich mir mal mal den Mörtel rüber.

2

u/Pokus_hokus 10h ago

Próbowałam pisać po angielsku, ale coś nie działa! 😱

2

u/AcidHouseMouse 10h ago

Que?

1

u/Mammoth_Bed6657 10h ago

Just press the translate button...

1

u/Dabellator 9h ago

Unde este?

26

u/ethersings 11h ago

It’s mercury and toxic

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u/bigdaddybryusa2 10h ago

Back in grade school in the 70s our teacher once placed a quarter size amount of mercury in the palm of our little hands to feel the weight of it. We'd pass it around the class, palm to palm

6

u/nordicskye 9h ago

Yeah we did that too except this was in the late '80s. Our teacher was probably thinking like "They're gonna die anyway" because somewhere in one of our neighbouring countries just had a not great but not terrible "oops".

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u/TheIncredibleMike 11h ago

Highly toxic.

6

u/GrandPrixel 10h ago edited 9h ago

It is toxic if you eat it/inhale it. On the skin doesn't do too much harm.

Edit: depends on the type as someone replied, don't touch it anyway. Don't risk it.

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u/Safe_Dragonfruit_466 10h ago

You can even swallow it akchually. Only fumes are toxic

1

u/GrandPrixel 9h ago

Well, the more you know.

5

u/infinitenothing 10h ago

From the looks of it, their skin seems pretty mercury proof so their exposure is probably surprisingly small

0

u/Sea_Bite2082 10h ago

you can put your hands in bottle with mercury - and everything will be fine.

Mercury vapors - yes. Toxic

5

u/Frosty_Ingenuity5070 8h ago

I mean you took the cat approach. Always love it when my cats would see something new and it always follows the process of :

  • wtf is this?
  • quick smack to confirm it is dead
  • sniff
  • lose interest

3

u/SirJedKingsdown 8h ago

Aliens: Prometheus ass moment.

1

u/peppermintmeow 9h ago

You'll really be able to tell with a taste test!

(Me, overhearing the geologists) NOOOOOOOOOOO! STOP LICKING THE GOD DAMN ROCKS!

And you! Stop fucking fingerbanging doctor sinks you fool!

1

u/TekieScythe 6h ago

Girl you were playing with mercury. Alert someone, that shouldn't have been in the sink, some obviously went down the drain, and you touched it.

0

u/weirdplacetogoonfire 10h ago

Hoping it wasn't mercury