driftpin
Well-known member
Not really a tool story, but definitely a 'screw-up" of-sorts. This happened in the 1960's while living in western NY by Lake Ontario, in a small community on the Erie Canal. One of the forbidden things beloved of adolescents was fireworks. Lady fingers, Black cats, bottle rockets, small aerial display devices, roman candles, and the holy grail, M-80s! Farmers in the community could get dynamite for land-clearing, but we didn't want anything to do with that. But if you had a box of M-80's, well, until they were gone, you were somebody! Danger has an attraction. Like the opening scene in the Anthony Hopkins movie, Hearts of Atlantis where the kids are all-excited to ride their bicycles with the baseball cards laundry-pinned to their bicycle frame stays, and clattering-away, while they ride through the cloud of DDT being sprayed by the village truck. Playing with M-80's was possibly something that could get you hurt, and there was the story of the kid in the next village who was playing with an M-80 during the Fourth of July, and after the parade with the fire trucks, the reigning Harvest Queen riding on the back of the Mayor's Buick convertible, waving at the crowd, the school marching band playing Sousa marches, and the old men in their military uniforms, well, that kid held-onto the M-80 just a bit too-long, and it blew a finger clean-off, and they couldn't re-attach it at the community hospital. So, everyone knew that you had to be careful, because you didn't want to be Billy Three-Fingers.
So, two brothers, Ole and Eric are riding around in their parents' Olds Dynamic 88 and their friend Joe has the back seat all to himself. They're hoping to run-into some of the girls they all attend high school with, so they're out cruising, but they don'r want to find those girls just-yet as they have a few M-80's to set-off. Everyone knows you don't want to do something stupid like put an M-80 into a mailbox and close the lid, as the M-80 will blow that sheet metal apart like what happened to those poor sailors in the Thresher the USN submarine that went-down at sea not long ago, with a tragic loss of all-hands. And it says right on the mailbox lid, it's a federal crime to mess-with the property of the US Government. Who wants the FBI coming to look for them, because they threw an M-80 into a mailbox?
Ole's driving, his brother Eric is ridin' shotgun, and Joe has the whole back seat to himself. The Dynamic 88 has a lotta room, and maybe enough for a cold six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon in a brown paper bag on the floor.
The Pabst and the M-80's are both disappearing, the Pabst to satisfy the thirst of the three village kids, their empties crumpled and kicked-under the car front seat, the pop-tops carefully bent together to add to the chain of them they've been making for awhile. And the M-80's are almost gone, in a satisfying report as they get tossed-out the open window and as they explode in the road or on the swale, throwing bits of gravel and dirt into the air.
Eric reaches down to retrieve one of the last M-80's from his front-seat passenger's location. He presses-in the cigarette lighter in the Dynamic 88's dash, and it has popped-back out announcing it's now glowing orange and hot. Eric quickly lights the M-80 fuse and throws it out his window. Or, he tries to throw it out his window. Ole, driving the car, had used the driver's door armrest console to shut Eric's window, which results in the M-80 bouncing off the glass, and landing square in Eric's lap. Between the rapidly-burning fuse and the thought of what befell the neighboring village's Billy Three-Fingers, and where the ordinance is sitting, things look pretty-bad for Eric. He might never be able to undress and shower for gym class without being the object of cruel adolescent jokes.
What to do? And quick? Eric picks-up the M-80 and looks at the rapidly-shortening fuse, and takes action. He throws it over his shoulder and into the back seat with Joe!
They all claimed their ears rang for a week, Joe narrowly-avoided being this village's Billy Three-Fingers, and there was no satisfactory way to explain to their dad what-happened to the back seat carpet, but the truth.
So, two brothers, Ole and Eric are riding around in their parents' Olds Dynamic 88 and their friend Joe has the back seat all to himself. They're hoping to run-into some of the girls they all attend high school with, so they're out cruising, but they don'r want to find those girls just-yet as they have a few M-80's to set-off. Everyone knows you don't want to do something stupid like put an M-80 into a mailbox and close the lid, as the M-80 will blow that sheet metal apart like what happened to those poor sailors in the Thresher the USN submarine that went-down at sea not long ago, with a tragic loss of all-hands. And it says right on the mailbox lid, it's a federal crime to mess-with the property of the US Government. Who wants the FBI coming to look for them, because they threw an M-80 into a mailbox?
Ole's driving, his brother Eric is ridin' shotgun, and Joe has the whole back seat to himself. The Dynamic 88 has a lotta room, and maybe enough for a cold six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon in a brown paper bag on the floor.
The Pabst and the M-80's are both disappearing, the Pabst to satisfy the thirst of the three village kids, their empties crumpled and kicked-under the car front seat, the pop-tops carefully bent together to add to the chain of them they've been making for awhile. And the M-80's are almost gone, in a satisfying report as they get tossed-out the open window and as they explode in the road or on the swale, throwing bits of gravel and dirt into the air.
Eric reaches down to retrieve one of the last M-80's from his front-seat passenger's location. He presses-in the cigarette lighter in the Dynamic 88's dash, and it has popped-back out announcing it's now glowing orange and hot. Eric quickly lights the M-80 fuse and throws it out his window. Or, he tries to throw it out his window. Ole, driving the car, had used the driver's door armrest console to shut Eric's window, which results in the M-80 bouncing off the glass, and landing square in Eric's lap. Between the rapidly-burning fuse and the thought of what befell the neighboring village's Billy Three-Fingers, and where the ordinance is sitting, things look pretty-bad for Eric. He might never be able to undress and shower for gym class without being the object of cruel adolescent jokes.
What to do? And quick? Eric picks-up the M-80 and looks at the rapidly-shortening fuse, and takes action. He throws it over his shoulder and into the back seat with Joe!
They all claimed their ears rang for a week, Joe narrowly-avoided being this village's Billy Three-Fingers, and there was no satisfactory way to explain to their dad what-happened to the back seat carpet, but the truth.
Figured I might as well use it for a couple of outlets that already existed, but were patched into another circuit. I thought I would reduce the load on that other circuit by changing over to the "hanging" line, so I turned off the power and wired the outlets up. Had the idea that I better test the voltage just to see if I wired it correctly. Used my multimeter to check the outlet, and it was reading 220V! 