It Happens Every Spring

A college professor is working on a long-term scientific experiment when a Baseball (object) comes through the window, destroying all of his glassware and spilling the fluids that the flasks and test tubes contained. The pooled fluids combine to form the chemical "IUPAC nomenclature of organic chemistry#Alkanes," which then covers a large portion of the baseball. The professor soon discovers that the fluid, along with any object with which it makes contact, is repelled by wood (cf. Alexander Fleming's Serendipity discovery of penicillin).