I'm certainly no chemist, but I agree with others. When I was a child we used to break our thermometers just to play with mercury. We'd play with it for hours on end and I don't believe it made any of us sick.

this mercury scare is a bunch of crap. kids in the 50's and 60's use to play with mercury. unless you used it 8 hours every day for 20 years as hatters did hence the term mad as a hatter occasional contact causes no harm.

I've never known of a small amount of mercury harming anyone unless it's ingested. When I was in grade school science class we had mercury in the classroom and thermeters used to check your body tempreture all had mercury in them. Somehow, I'm just not afraid of a little mercury so this sounds like a mountain out of a molehill to me. Clean it up and move on...it's not radioactive!