Have you ever used a microscope? I'm not talking about the toy-variety with the mirror to reflect sunlight through your onion peel, but a real-life, professional, laboratory quality microscope for examining some of the tiniest organisms. With my background in biology and my career in microbiology, I have spent many, many hours of my life staring down the barrel of a 'scope. Years and years ago, a professor in college taught me a very valuable lesson.