More dream stuff

I've been dreaming a lot lately, apparently a side effect of a new medication. Frequently it's leaving me very tired in the morning; I'm getting the impression that I'm not getting much deep sleep. The dreams are sometimes entertaining, in their own special way, but sometimes tedious. Spending a long time trying to sort through a big bundle of old shoelaces, for example, trying to find a matching pair that would fit my running shoes. But it wasn't enough to "bore myself awake"... unfortunately.

Last night, I was a lead actor in an SF comedy show, Star Wars evil-galactic-empire style.  I was the Darth Vader equivalent.  The show's focus was on the bumbling evil imperials, and every week they were defeated by their antagonists.  It was a very odd inversion of tropes.
 

Sun Life's extensive list of faults...

... do not, I think, include doing phone spam to solicit appointments for itinerant financial advisors who "will be in [my] neighborhood".

I think.

I do wonder what manner of creature would have shown up on my doorstep if I had agreed?

As it was, communications broke down when I insisted that I would not let the caller speak with his "special friend" unless he told me his account number, and he insisted that he wasn't allowed to do that.  (More plausible responses would include things like "what account number are you talking about?")
 

I do not know the composition of gerbil urine

But on drying, gerbil pee leaves a tough white residue, poorly soluble in water and difficult to remove from a plastic surface without damage to the plastic.  However, it is readily soluble in concentrated hydrochloric acid, with evolution of gas.  I suspect it's giving off CO₂, but I don't have the resources to try to confirm.  It would probably also dissolve in something like vinegar, but much more slowly.

I miss working in a chemistry lab for many reasons, and one of them is ready access to small amounts of harmless chemicals for personal use.  But some reagents are available from craft and hardware stores, if you know what to look for.  Hydrochloric acid is also known as muriatic acid, and the version sold in hardware stores is pretty close to the concentrated HCl we used in labs.