Fun Fact: When I was a kid, it was fairly routine to play with mercury. Rubbing it on our fingers, smearing it on coins, watching how the lumps would combine. Easy to obtain from old silent light switches or thermostats. As far as I know, we all survived for quite a few years after that. Now it seems like if a single drop of mercury spills they call out the hazmat team and shut the school down.
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@lauren Yeah, seems like it was easy (for other kids, not me) to play with but then, all of a sudden, it disappeared.
@lauren Glad to know I’m not the only ancient one here. Elemental mercury, lead in gasoline, water pipes, and school fountains, asbestos blankets and tiles. Sometimes it amazes me that we survived
@lauren I had a toy that had mercury inside. I think it was a maze thing that you tilted to move the mercury around
It's breathing it that is the real risk I think. The mercury vapor absorbs readily and it turns to vapor at fairly low temps.
@lauren It was fun to play with and I'm no where near mad as a hatter. Or so I assume.
@lauren when I was a kid, we were supposed to use lead shot for measuring weight in a balance, but we're chewed out for throwing pieces at each other because it was poisonous.
@lauren
I remember seeing mercury in our thermostat, but I did not see any children touching it with their bare hands. That would require breaking the thermostat, and most of our parents would be upset about it.