Christmas Story
This Extra Credit assignment is worth 15 bonus points and is due the Dec 14, 2012.
You will need to read the following story and locate as many element names as you can- most of the
elements on the periodic table are hidden somewhere in the story! HINT: There are over 75!
You should look for full names with some errors in spelling allowed. For example “Oh what a cad
me am!” is the element cadmium.
To receive your points, you will need to turn in a highlighted list of the ELEMENTS included in the
story-you will use the copy of the periodic table I will provide later, as well as this sheet with the
names highlighted/underlined. Make sure your NAME is on it!
In a little back street in Piedmont, we find chemistry teachers Ebeneezer
Rogers, Ebeneezer Wienke, Ebeneezer Hyndman and Ebeneezer Nicholas
licking their tungstens with mercurial delight as they count their gold and
silver collections from their students' fees for broken glassware. "Praise, O
Dimium!" the Ebeneezers shout. "Poor Marie Osmium, usually warm and
iridium, has collapsed and is lying phlatinum from our titanium final
examination, yet we are not dysprosium to become good samariums. "Did
you see the way she lanthanum on the floor after seeing our test?" asked
an Ebeneezer! "Gadolinium!" exclaimed another Ebeneezer. Call a
student government copper to lead her to her study hall."
And in the prep room, Rubidium Cratchett, local philosopher and lab
technetium, a graduate of Berkelium Collegium in Californium, washes
glassware in cold water while reading Kafka's "Investigations of a Dog".
Rub is no Einsteinium, but he's not sodum either, and he does tend right to
bismuth all the time. It's Christmas Eve and Rub asks to go holmium
early. "You've got a lot of gallium," replies an Ebeneezer. I'll be frankium
but firmium. Half a day's work, halfnium a day's pay." “That's all right,"
the mystic, Rub reflects, "I'm anti-money anyway."
Late that night, the Ebeneezers awake to see the ghastly and palladium
face of their departed colleague, Gregor Mendel, who ironically looked
worse in real life. With Mendel leaving him, an Ebeneezer heard the ghost
say " Iodide neon to a hundred and twenty years ago and since then I've
gone out each night, trudgin around with those arsenine genetics tests that
are as heavy and promethium as the rock problem. Long and protactinium
is my argony. Mend your way, Ebeneezers!" Thus spake the genetic ghost
this abromination and departed.
"That was very strange and ytterbium," thought the Ebeneezers as they
dozed off. But another ghost who looked a carbon copy of St. Nickelous
came to wake the Ebeneezers. Growling good-bye to their starving dog,
Plutonium, the Ebeneezers grabbed the ghost by the sleeve, and rhodium
off into the Christmas past.
They flew all over Europium (to research Romium, Italium, then on to
Polonium, making a raid on old girl friends that an Ebeneezer knew while
he was in the Americium armed forces. There were Fluorine and
Ruthenium, and a couple of great Scandium blondes. How he loved to
pinch Lorine! What a foxy generation! They dined on stuffed boar - on
corn on the cob, although garnished with herbiums from Indium. For
dessert, they munched on tiny berrylliums from Germanium. Very
tantalum. As they were feasting and flirting and fooling around as only the
young and silicon, it occurred to the Ebeneezers that being mean old
chemistry teachers isn't the magnesium of occupations. But the jolly old
ghost scolded the proud and vanadium Ebeneezers for actinium up and
took them holmium again.
Then, just as their dreams were becoming mildly pleasant, the most
prephosphorous apparition of all appeared and carried them off to view all
sorts of ugly things which might come to pass. First, they saw Molly B.
Denim coming out of that scavengering undertaking firm, Cesium and
Barium , with Ebeneezer's favorite jigsaw puzzle tests in her dungaree
pocket. Then on to Rubidium Cratchett's hovel where poor tiny Tin lay
crippled; with his legs thorium and no way to helium. He was sulfuring
and zincing into greater agony. "Oh what a cad me am!" declared an
Ebeneezer, who wasn't much of a grammaratarian either. And with that
they awoke new and nobelium men. With radium smiles, they swore to
Xenon never to give so cerium a chemistry tast ta tiney Tin again. Agile
and lithium, and with a manganous heart, an Ebeneezer sprang from bed,
took out a new dimium and called the doctor to come over and curium
Tiny Tin's leg. Tin was tellurium with joy and said, "Bless everyone, even
mean old chemistry teachers!”