Lucky

Purifying compounds is a tedious and often repeated task in the life of an organic chemist. Column chromatography which is essentially a filter with varying affinty for different compunds is the standard in the lab (and most others).
Today I was to run a column on a compound for the second time, since it didn't get entirely clean the last time. So I start out with my solvent mixture and half way through the column I realise I used the wrong mixture. Way to go!! The impurities start coming out in a mess and I figure I'm going to be doing this column again tomorrow.
Surprisingly my product comes out totally clean without any impurities. I'm slightly amazed.
I finish the column and start collecting the fractions. After removing the solvents I discover that I have collected impure and pure fractions!! Fantastic!! Again I figure I might have tomorrows work cut out for me. As it turns out the pure fractions that I have isolated contain more compound than the mixed ones!!
How lucky can you be!!! :-)