That One Time I Created A Chemical Weapon

I've liked science since I was young. For example, I conducted an experiment when I was nine or ten years old: I wanted to see what would happen when I combined a cheap packet of hot sauce, Listerine mouthwash, and toothpaste (brand forgotten). I did not have any kind of hypothesis -- even to this day, I am unsure of what I was hoping to accomplish. Lacking the proper equipment, I emptied a nearby box of dominoes and mixed all the components together in the domino box. I also diluted the contents with some water, for whatever reason. Then I went to bed, excited for the results.

Later that night, a horrible smell woke me. Turns out the domino box was not at all watertight (I has stupidly assumed it was watertight because it was made of metal, although now I suspect it may have been made of faux metal) and the hot sauce mouthwash toothpaste concoction was leaking everywhere. Horrified, I tried to dump the evidence -- but the smell quickly permeated the house, waking my father. To my surprise, he helped me clean up the mess without saying a word of reproach. (Years later, during a visit to China, he would repay me in kind by snoring so loudly it registered on the Richter scale. Seriously, I could feel the floor rumbling.)

This early version of the hot sauce Listerine toothpaste experiment was imperfect, and so would undergo another iteration when I was in seventh grade. I'd learned from my previous mistakes. This time, I set a goal in mind: To create the most vile-smelling mixture of solutions I could find. I wanted to be able to market this thing as a chemical weapon of some sort, produce some odor so damaging the UN would ban its manufacture on a global scale. I don't know why I wanted to do this; something about watching the world burn, maybe.

The finished product was a mixture of hot sauce, Axe body spray, insect repellant, sunscreen, yeast, and some other mysterious item I've forgotten. My friend assisted me in its production. We mixed the ingredients with noses pinched, placed the finished product in a tiny, watertight container, covered it in cellophane, and let it sit for a month in my friend's desk drawer. During this month, we both forgot about it. Then I went over to his house one day, he happened to open his desk drawer, and we rediscovered our experiment. We reached for the cellophane cover, removed it --

Imagine that smelling a delightful flower is like your nose getting a massage. A rotten egg is like if someone gently tossed a pillow at your nose. The smell of our creation was like a nuclear apocalypse, except if fecal matter had the properties of Uranium-235. This analogy may have gotten away from me.

I'm not sure why it smelled so bad. Something about yeast fermenting? That mystery ingredient I failed to remember? Something ironic about Axe body spray? 

Anyway, my friend's dog went crazy and we almost spilled the stuff all over ourselves. The very fact that we didn't was an aversion of a national tragedy. We immediately rushed outside to bury the disgusting substance, which we barely accomplished without passing out. We have never spoken of it since, although the mention of chemical weapons has made us glance at each other uncomfortably. For all I know, the mixture is still buried in a park somewhere. I leave the exact location undisclosed to save the UN the trouble of banning it globally. Woe to the human race should some madman -- someone who actually wants to watch the world burn -- discover it.

Lesson learned: Science can be dangerous.

-Me