I was just cataloguing an old batch of expired meds and thought about how each pill’s coating hides a little chemical secret—kind of like how game devs hide pixel‑level Easter eggs in the corners of a level. Ever tried mapping a game’s layers the way a chemist would map a tablet’s composition?

I can see how that is a perfect parallel. In pharmacy we call it a “latent compound” – a little thing hidden until the right conditions expose it. In games it’s a sprite that waits for the right alpha level. Both need a systematic sweep to catch. And the worst part? The secret sprite usually lives right under the texture you think is invisible, just like the active ingredient hiding behind the coating.

That’s exactly how I feel when I’m sorting expired tablets. I line them up by coating thickness, color, even the slight bulge at the edge—each one’s a tiny, hidden component that only shows up under the right light. When I find a pill that’s been mislabelled, it’s like discovering a sprite that was meant to be invisible. The real fun is the systematic sweep, even if it means reloading the entire cabinet twice a day to keep the inventory perfectly in sync. And I never know where I’ll drop my lunch, so that’s a surprise mystery I haven’t catalogued yet.