Agreed - definitely mixed cleaning products. Doesn't take much in a hot, claustrophobic kitchen.

A surprising number of people have no idea ammonia + bleach is a bad combo. Blame the lack of effective chemistry and/or home ec classes.

The Janitor's cocktail.

yep. just had this convo with the girlfriend actually. she had no idea either.

out of the 2 of us, shes the one with the college degree too...

So, your girlfriend is an idiot?

Not being taught a specific bit of chemistry makes one ignorant, not an idiot. Most people just don't know. The only reason I knew was from asking my parents to explain a King of the Hill joke to me as a teenager - neither they nor my school thought to teach that despite cleaning being one of my daily chores.

Being taught not to do that and doing it anyway makes you an idiot. There's a difference.

see, this has got to be one of the weird generational learnin things.

my grandma knew not to mix ammonia and bleach, she was born in the 30s and didn't go to school beyond the 3rd grade.

That was pretty much my point. The OP implies the accident is due to idiocy, when most likely it was due to ignorance, or even forgetting, or mishap. Likely, the OP would not have called the girlfriend an "idiot", though she did not know the danger. She was simply lucky enough not to have suffered the consequences of that gap in knowledge.

actually, my original point was that we have been dumbed down as a society. I likened it to what occurs in the movie idiocracy.

not idiocy

maybe you should watch the movie if you haven't.

self portrait with new username?

It took me a long time to realize that mustard gas wasn’t just heated liquid condiment.

It took you awhile to catchup?

He mayo may not have learned this the hard way.

I too thought mustard gas was farts brought on by eating mustard laden foodstuffs.

It's not like mustard gas is mentioned a lot these days.

not nearly as big a one as You! 😀

One of my highschool science teachers did that. She very quickly realized her mistake and got out of there.

Even people who should know better make mistakes like that. Even if you know of this reaction, do you know which chemicals are in the cleaners you have? Did you rinse out the cleaning bucket well?

I learned about not mixing bleach and ammonia from an episode of Who's The Boss where Tony accidentally mixed the two and passed out.