Last night I had a dream in which I very nearly died; All round me raged a gruesome hoard of mad nucleotides. The sugars and the bases put the phosphates into flight, And SN2 reactions were occurring left and right. Then BF4 came sweeping in with hydride ions grim. From then on, all carbonyl groups had chances very slim. The poor hydroxys all around me begged, alas, in vain, As all their sigma bonds with carbon friends were cut in twain. When lithium di-isopropyl amide entered in, It brutally removed all of the alpha hydrogens And left the alpha carbons…