Monday, April 23, 2012

#78. or, blowing shit up

  Remember when you were a kid and you would rub a balloon in your hair and it would stick to the ceiling. Or, when you dragged your feet across the carpet and walked past the Christmas tree, the tinsel would drift out towards you and give you a zap. That's static electricity, sometimes though, static electricity is not your friend.

  When i turned 40, we had some friends over for a little bash. It wasn't a gigantic affair. In fact, everyone fit around the kitchen table. There was some drinking involved.

  I'm going to stop here for a minute to say that when there's drinking involved with these friends, sometimes bad things happen. Like deciding that it would be an awesome idea to ride down a hill with my buddy in his kids wagon. That ended badly. Or thinking that eating a sausage right off the metal stick you had just used to cook that sausage with over the open fire with is a fine plan......it's not. It also ended badly.  However, i'm going to call these things learning experiences. Things that you probably should never do again. It's never good to stop learning, right?

  Anyways, we did a bit of drinking. Somebody suggested that if you were to fill a garbage bag with a mixture of highly explosive gasses, tie a piece of paper towel into it to act as a fuse when you tied off the bag, you could light that fuse and safely move away and watch the excitement from a safe distance. Now, i happen to have explosive gasses in my shop, my wife has garbage bags and paper towel, the next logical step would be to test this hypothesis, purely in the name of science.......also because guys like to blow shit up.

 So we did it. Filled a large garbage bag with explosive gasses, tied in the paper towel fuse, positioned it in a safe spot in the yard, lit the fuse, moved to a safe distance, and watched the resulting explosion,which only a group of drunk guys could fully appreciate. It was awesome....then we went to drink some more. It wasn't too long before someone pointed out the obvious, we should do that again. New garbage bag in hand (one of these large green ones) we headed out to the shop to recreate awesomeness. We filled the bag with the explosive gasses and my buddy came over to tie in the redneck fuse. I'm holding the bag, he touches it and the next second, all i saw was an orange ball of fire and suddenly i couldn't hear anything except ringing in my ears.

  The explosion shredded my shirt, blew my wrist watch to pieces, burned the hair off my arms and singed all my facial hair. The creases in my jeans cut into my legs. I had bits of garbage bag coming out from behind my eyeballs for three days. My buddy had a leather jacket on which protected him quite a bit but we both blew of our ear drums. Also, the explosion blew a large window out of the shop, rattled the drywall loose from the ceiling in all four corners and blew the vent louvers out of the dash in the vehicle that all this happened in front of. The second time was certainly not as fun as the first. ..........also, our wives were not impressed.

  When your ear drums are blown, it sounds like everyone is talking with a sock jammed in their mouth. If you are in a hall or someplace crowded, all the voices and sounds get muffled together and you can't sort them out. It's a bit of an inconvenience. But, the remarkable thing is that they do heal themselves. It takes a month or so but it does get better. Except the ringing, that's still there, you just learn to ignore it. One positive thing is that you get really good at watching TV with the sub titles on. After about three days, it almost becomes second nature.

  ...............filling a garbage bag with explosive gasses is not a good idea. I learned that. Sometimes though, it crosses my mind how things might have turned out if we had used one of those expandable, force-flex garbage bags?  Purely in the name of science of course.

 

39 comments:

  1. I think I will just stick to blowing up firecrackers! Not always safe but at least it's safer than explosive gases! Although I did have one blow up in my hand once! It hurt like hell but it could've been worse!

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    1. we were improvising.we didn't have any firecrackers.

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    2. Also, while we can have fireworks, I think fire crackers are still illegal here. Those things are too dangerous I guess?

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    3. I think they might be illegal here too but you can still buy them...along with every other illegal fireworks!

      We used to have bottle rocket wars! So much fun! I think we quit once one hit one of my friends right between the eyes! Thankfully it didn't blow up in his face! Still a bit scary though!

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  2. Too funny, and thank the gods, not fatal! It was certainly a learning experience of the highest rank, and I can almost imagine what kinds of things the wives must have had to say. What is it about men and blowing things up anyway? Most certainly it was a birthday well celebrated, and one you will never forget! It also goes to prove the theory that age and wisdom do not always progress at the same rate! :-))

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    1. my body is quite a lot less forgiving these days than it used to be. I've had to take on a greater role as instigator rather than guinea pig.

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  3. I think when it comes to explosives, that stuff should be left for the scientists who have, as a career, built an empire on making stuff explode on T.V., purely to test their hypothesis.

    (When I was a kid, I was too short to reach the ceiling. My balloons clung to the walls for a few seconds before they skidded to the floor.)

    -Barb the French Bean

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    1. Now that you mention blowing stuff up on TV, this pretty much ruined action movies. Everytime the hero gets blown out of a building or something, I'm thinking, oh ya, he's deaf now. But he never is.

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  4. I'm trying to see how this would be tempting but just can't! Well, I can see... but I still wouldn't have done it.

    I'm extra fascinated by your blown out eardrum though. That's what my ear feels like after the massive thunderclap - I wonder if my eardrum is blown out... my brother had a hole in his eardrum when he was a kid and had to have surgery to fix it. Hope whatever I have goes away!

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    1. Both of mine were blown out. They questioned if they were going to repair themselves they were so bad. If they hadn't, they could have apparently patched them. They healed on their own. Except they still ring and sometimes i have trouble sorting out sounds in noisy halls.

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    2. I called the ENT today - he's on vacation but told me to come in on Monday.

      My ear still hurts, and since I'm going to the beach for a week, I thought I had better have it checked before then. Hope the eardrum is ok!

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    3. I hope it didn't get blown. It would be awful to go to the beach and not be able to go in the water.

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  5. LOL. Dear God in heaven above, if you and Brett ever meet, the world will never hear the end of it. ...or we'll all hear the explosion.

    I LOVE this! You should submit it to Mythbusters! I wonder what went wrong the second time. Seems to me that a third try is in order...or are you fairly confident that it was the fact that you were both in contact with the bag?

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    1. It had to be a static elictric shock when my buddy touched the bag. I guess if you were to ground yourself or wear rubber boots and gloves you might be OK? Truthfully though, i don't know if i would be bold enough to do it again. But then, liquid courage makes you do some dumb things.

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  6. Hi! Thanks for dropping of a question on my blog for OQW. Here's one for you... What three words best describe your life, and what are three words that people would never use to describe you? (Hmmm, let's see, that's about six answers, but still just one questionmark... go Josie! :-)

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    1. Lol, I came by especially to check on the Master! ;-)

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    2. Hey Josie, you've probably already noticed but this time i answered you question over at your page. I hope that doesn't break any rules here. :)

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  7. Holy shit, Ken! You guys are insane! LOL That's got to be the funniest, most awful, scariest thing I've read in a long time.

    And I'm going to make sure my husband doesn't read this--I don't want him getting any bright ideas (because you know other guys reading this will think it wouldn't happen to them...right? LOL)

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    1. actually......there's this thing i've been itching to try with a barrel of grain dust and a road flare. I just have to find someplace to do it where there isn't the chance of burning down the country side.

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  8. You should change to name of your blog to "Things Never to Do."

    I don't even like candles, so that is the extent of my stunts with fire.

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    1. sometimes i do nice quiet things too, like read other blogs. :)

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  9. Well that is a birthday you will never forget. All I got was plastic flamingos & a pig.
    Force-flex garbage bags are USELESS. I don't recommend it, that explosion you may not live to tell.

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    1. I would have gladly taken the flamingos and the pig after the fact. :)

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  10. Oh man, that sounded like something I would have survived in my youth. You know those things you laugh about now, but the little voice inside says "you were lucky that day."

    Great work Ken.
    WG

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    1. I was far too lucky on that day, but i'm not going to complain about that. The ringing in my ears serves as a bit of an idiot alarm for me now.......sometimes.

      Thanks for stopping by.

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  11. Holy crap. That is absolutely nuts. Now, as a photographer, I would have liked to have taken photos of these two "explosions," for "experience" of course. But man... sounds like you definitely tight-walked a rope with that second one.

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    1. Maybe a few pictures would be helpful for one of those "kids, don't try this at home" moments? More likely though that it would have won somebody $10 000 on the funniest home videos. But not me.

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  12. Hilarious! Dangerous but hilarous!

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    1. I find that i don't say "hey, watch this!" nearly as much as i did before this happened.

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  13. Man, now I have to cancel the "Garbage Bag Explosion" party extravaganza I have planned for Saturday. Thanks for ruining my weekend with your wisdom! Now I have to stick to the knife-juggling clowns instead...

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    1. ......yes, the clowns! Definitely go with the knife juggling clowns.

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  14. I think you're going to need a spotter for 50th birthday party.

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    1. it should be alright. Our wive's don't let us play without supervision anymore.

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  15. Please invite me if you plan on doing further tests.

    I do love me some science!

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    1. Sometimes, i worry that too much science, is going to get me killed. But sure, the more the merrier!

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  16. I love stuff like this. I'm glad I'm not the only pyromanic with an ill-judged sense of caution in the world.

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  17. All I can say is "Always use a ground cable".

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    1. I know! But i can never decide what to attach the alligator clip to?

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