Death by ice cream - Carbon in our life

How does a gas change with pressure and temperature? What does ice cream and a poorly regulated stove have in common?

We, the grown ups are boring. We go in, form at a queue, pay, they give us a number that leads into another queue - because because being a grown up is basically forming queues-, while we look at the board that displays the available flavors, we attempt to pick the best ones, this is, as elder. That is, in the best of cases, because there's grown ups that go into the ice cream shop and ASK FOR A COFFEE. Get this straight, this is an Ice Cream Shop. You should not be asking in there for a particular book.

At her 30sh years of age, Bridget Jones found in ice cream a way of canalizing her depression because of the fact that she was single and uncomfortable with her body, feeding herself into a body she will hate even more. (Quite an illogical thinking, since she was really hot anyways). Perhaps, little Bridget did not handle her depression by eating ice cream, perhaps she played that she ate ice cream, and that made her happy for a little while. As I did, as we all did.

Because, as we were little the flavor didn't matter, what mattered was how cool it was, the color, the funkier the better. Beside there was this ludic topic. Paw shaped, bus shaped, "get a free ice cream" tickets and that race we played against gravity and temperature that gave the simple fact of eating one a whole circus theme, with our mothers juggling stuff around so that we would not become some ice cream colored clowns pestered by flies.

But all those fun things were shaded when the one eating ice cream with me was Daniela (Danielle). Blonde, light blue eyes (yes, a nice recessive gene... Limited Edition!!!) and, as all of women, full of carbon.

Carbon is the second element with major presence in our bodies after oxygen. But, at least on Sundays, the most important thing is not that it's a fundamental brick for human manufacturing (to avoid conflicts we will also consider humans the people that asks for t̶o̶o̶t̶h̶p̶a̶s̶t̶e̶ mint flavor), but that it is 80% of what conforms charcoal, a key player for any decent barbeque. Another kind of important carbon is coal, which is used more for industrial purposes rather than homemade projects. If we purify them, separating the things that are not carbon we obtain graphite. In graphite, the carbon atoms correlate with each other in a way that it is a soft and dark material, ideal for writing. Thanks to that I was able to write all those letters to Danielle, as long as I had a pencil because, despite all the efforts my mom put to put a name tag in all of the ones she bought me, I kept on misplacing them.

Something amazing about carbon is, that when it is under pressure, it does incredible things. Such as diamonds. Yes, we may say that all the pencils we bit in our childhood had nothing to envy from that precious overpriced little "rock". Diamonds is nothing else but carbon after being exposed to high pressure and temperature. This makes its atoms to arrange in a different way, resulting in one of the most resistant materials we know about.

That afternoon at the ice cream shop i could not possibly imagine that the air that breezed out of Danielle's mouth was also related to carbon. Lets say that, in metabolic terms, "breathing" is nothing else buy oxidizing carbon. This is precisely what each one of our cells do. they grab compounds full of carbon, like sugars and fat and, with oxygen, they produce a chemical reaction that results in "energy and carbon dioxide".

An amazing fact is that, if I could compress that carbon dioxide that came out of Danielle's mouth, I would''ve got to the material that is, by far, the most enjoyable one a civilian can get at an ice cream shop. Because the carbon dioxide also does incredible things when it is under pressure. things like dry ice, that is nothing else but compressed carbon dioxide that is cooled down until it solidifies. The largest difference between solid water and dry ice is that, at "normal" pressure and temperature, an Ice cube would melt into a liquid state (you didn't know it is water?). The dry ice, on the other hand, sublimates, this is going from solid to gas state without passing by the liquid state, giving place to that "smoke" we see at several concerts.

And, to follow up this "everything has something to do with everything" topic, this is the gas that livens up most of our most of our beverages since many years ago. Those bubbles that spice up any drink, but may make you cry if it catches you distracted.

Who would've though that the same molecule I worshiped would betray me one morning. Because, of course, Why wouldn't I run up to her house, seeking her so I may share a can of cold soda I just bought for us; so that she may give me that smile I adored in her? But, all I was able to fill, was a face of full tears. That night, her room was totally closed, and the stove was not very well regulated, all because of the same gas that came out of her mouth. That carbon dioxide that, when I dropped solid into a glass of water, made me feel like a rocket scientist; in my childhood. Just like today.

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