[unistudent]

If you try and dissolve triethylamine [ N(CH₂CH₃)₃ ] with 5% aqueous HCl, what happens to the molecular structure and draw it.  

My thoughts were that nitrogen woul pick up another H and would have the formula NH(CH₂CH₃)₃⁺and then there would be Cl^- ions in the solution but that isn't logical because then the + and - ions would bond to give me NH(CH₂CH₃)₃Cl.   What am I thinking or doing wrong if I am on the completely wrong track?

[Doc Oc]

What's wrong with having ionic compounds stick together?  That happens with table salt perfectly fine.

[lavoisier]

unistudent,
your answer to the problem was correct. TEA gets protonated.

Concerning positive and negative ions, don't forget that you are in an aqueous solution.
So the ions will stick together and form electrically neutral molecules only if such neutral molecules are energetically more stable than the dissociated (and solvated) + and - ions.
For triethylamine hydrochloride, the solvated ions are more stable.

In other cases the bond between the ions is so strong that it prevails over the solvation energy. But that's generally more frequent for inorganic species. Example: AgI, BaSO4, HgS...