Life in the Nerd Lab: Personal Hygiene

"EEEAAARRGGGGHHHH!" 

Hearing a horrified scream, the students in the SFIT lab jerked away from their work, looking over to lab 32 where a burly black man was gazing, wide-eyed, at something soft and blue left on his work table.

"Fred!" Wasabi cried indignantly, delicately picking up the offending object with a handy pair of tongs. "Did you leave this here?"

"Ooh, sorry, man," Fred said apologetically. "I took it off last night and then forgot where I put it. It won't happen again, I promise. I don't take my beanie off very often any--hey, are you listening to me?"

"Bleaugh," was Wasabi's only reply as he rushed to the lab sink to wash his hands. He wiped down the area on his table where the hat had lain, and doused the surroundings with antibacterial spray for good measure.

Go Go wrinkled her nose as she watched Fred pull the hat over his matted hair. "How long has it been since you last showered?" she asked. "You are disgusting."

"Says the girl who sticks her gum to her tool rack at night," Fred shot back coolly. Go Go popped a bubble in his face.

"And chews it again the next day," he added.

They looked over to Wasabi, who was visibly distressed. "Both of you," he said helplessly. "Both of you are disgusting."

Raising his voice, he lamented, "Does anyone in this lab actually practise good personal hygiene?"

"Me," Hiro suggested as he was walking by. "I used to hate baths as a kid, but it kind of got drummed into me."

Wasabi was just about to open his mouth in relief when Fred held out his hands warningly. "Uh-uh, hold up," he said, shaking his head. "You drank that soda yesterday when it'd been sitting around in the lab for four days. I saw you."

"Yeah, who knows how much bacteria could have got into that stuff," Go Go concurred, eager to drag Hiro down with the rest of them.

"Hey, I'm still here," Hiro protested, but Wasabi cut him off, throwing his hands up in desperation. 

"No one in this lab understands the concept of contamination."

"Wasabi is right," Baymax said. "Personal hygiene is important. Hiro, if you had asked me, I would have gotten you a new drink."

The precision physicist gave the robot a grateful smile. "Baymax is the only one that gets it."

"How about Honey?" Hiro said, reluctant to admit that they were all as filthy as Wasabi made them out to be. His friend's colourful concoctions. were messy, of course, but they weren't exactly crawling with germs or anything.

Wasabi brightened. "Hey, yeah! I think Honey's pretty good..."

A shrill cry sounded at the other end of the lab, and Honey came bounding over, a beaker in hand. 

"We were just talking about you," Go Go commented as Honey proudly exhibited the beaker's contents.

"I totally forgot that I left this mixture in the back of my shelf," she said, bouncing in excitement. "I needed it to sit for a few days somewhere dark and warm, but then I got caught up in something else...I only discovered it today when I was cleaning some stuff out! Doesn't it look cool?"

Hiro stared, both revolted and fascinated, at the red, flowery growth immersed in a thick yellow liquid that would have been clear if it hadn't been so full of dust. "Uh, sure, Honey. Cool."

"What is that, anyway? Some kind of fungus?" Fred asked.

Honey tilted her head to the side thoughtfully. "I don't think so, but it was near a heating vent where a lot of weird stuff probably blows in and out, so it could be! I'm not a biologist, though. I could test it now!" She hurried back to her lab space, head humming with possibilities.

Wasabi had gone unnaturally pale. "I...I take that back," he said, and shuddered meaningfully.

The team dispersed back to their work, Wasabi muttering under his breath. "No concept of hygiene at all...I need to bring more disinfectant...maybe set up some signs at my lab space..."

He thumped his bottle of antibacterial spray back onto the shelf in its proper place.

"Once I finish this project I'm working on cleaning lasers."


Author's notes:
1. Cleaning lasers exist!