Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Dumb things I've done with objects and substances.

30 years ago - Sharp objects.

Decorated a shiny apple with colored-pushpins and took a bite. Complained shyly to my mother that I had a tummy ache and told her I’d decorated my apple and taken a bite. Ended up at hospital. X-rays revealed nothing.

18 years ago - Highly pressurized objects.

Filling my car tire at a gas station in South Dakota, decided to walk into the gas station office and ask why the air pump wasn't going 'ping - ping - ping' once my tire was inflated. The attendant told me I was using a motorbike pump. I'd inflated my tire about 10 times the correct pressure. Tapping my tire, it sounded like a teak-drum. It could have exploded and removed my head.

14 years ago - Moving objects.

Held an electric drill with the chuck pressed into the drill-shaft up to my eyes to examine it one drunken evening in university. I had long hair in at the beginning of university. A large clump of hair was pulled from my head in about 1/20th of a second. I flushed the slightly-bloody damp clump of hair down the toilet, the whirling sound of which drowned out the mocking laughter of the strangers in my living room who claimed to be my friends only moments earlier.

12 years ago - Aerosolized substances.

Decided to clean my friend's electric kettle by pouring in CLR (phosphoric acid, etc...), and turning on the switch. And then we went out to the store. Coming back, we couldn't breathe and it took 30 minutes before the house was aired out enough to get into the kitchen and turn off the kettle.

11 years ago – Firearms.

Held a penny against a stone wall in a basement and told my friend's girlfriend to shoot it out of my fingers with a .177 caliber pellet rifle. My back was turned to her and she promptly shot me in the lumbar region of my back. It felt like she'd hit me with a baseball bat. I had a welt the size of Arizona on my spine for a week.

10 years ago - More aerosolized substances.

Decided to make homemade hot sauce in my work's kitchen. Made a frying pan really hot, diced up hot peppers and placed them in hot oil and then poured vinegar into the pan. Caused the evacuation of my workplace due to the capsaicin pepper-spray that infiltrated the ventilation system.