[977] in Humor
HUMOR: kids, don't try this at home
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Fri Jul 21 10:09:29 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Cc: tvaneck@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 1995 10:04:52 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
From: sao@MIT.EDU
To: abennett@MIT.EDU
From: jbm@scungilli.sbi.com (Jeff Moore)
From bostic@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU Wed Jul 19 19:12:02 1995
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 1995 18:35:02 -0400
From: bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: Peter Langston <psl@acm.org>
Forwarded-by: George Osner <gosner@ainet.com>
Forwarded-by: Jeff Shepherd <jeff@trg.saic.com>
From: IslandFlyr
I hate to admit it, but this happened to me way back in 1980 --
A few years after graduating from college, I returned to my folk's home
to retrieve a considerable number of storage boxes that I had left with
them. These boxes were filled with books, course notes, old homework
projects, etc. that I had kept. I decided to weed through them and
eliminate as much junk as I could.
Not having the heart to dump all that hard work into the garbage, I
decided to grab a six-pack, settle down in front of the downstairs fire
place and ceremonially burn four years worth of college memorabilia. I
managed to get through about five of the 15 or so boxes piled around me
when I realized I could not possibly sort through each box page-by-page.
In the interest of time, I decided to do a cursory scan of the contents
to determine if anything 'jumped out' as worth saving. Well, box number
six appeared to be loaded with Psychology and Logic 101 junk so I took
the short cut and tossed the whole box on the funeral pyre before me.
I popped open beer number four and watched the box smolder. Raising the
can, I gave one last salute to those two unmemorable courses as the box
erupted into a roaring inferno.
The papers were consumed rapidly.
So were the ancient contents of the dresser drawer that I had hastily
dropped into the bottom of that box when packing two years earlier. Dang,
I had forgotten all about that stuff. The toothbrush and hairbrush went
up rather well... also that packet of disposable plastic razors, dental
floss and contact lense case and a bunch of junk I don't even remember.
Of course, I didn't even know that stuff was going up in smoke as I sat
there. Just chugged the beer and watched. It burned great... right down
to that full can of deodorant that was in there with it all.
I had gotten about half the beer down when that deodorant can finally
decided it had had enough. What happened next I can only compare to the
scene from "2001" where that Dave Bowman guy is falling through all those
lights with that 'o shit' look on his face. I heard a BOOM so loud that
my brain only registered it as a high-pitched squeal. The contents of
the fireplace right down to the last ash were propelled out with such
velocity that all I could see were a multitude of bright streaks emanating
from a point about three feet in front of me (ala 2001). Big blue shock
wave knocked me back. Spill the beer? You bet. Caught me off guard?
He-- yes. Felt like I jumped on a live grenade? Guess so. One second
I was watching that inferno burn from the outside, the next second I was
watching it from the inside.
The human brain reverts to 'primordial slime' mode when thrown into a
situation like this. All higher-order functions vaporize. Guess it's all
those endorphines and endomorphines hitting it at once. It took a couple
of seconds to get the 'reasoning' capability of my brain back online. I
jumped up, looked at my hands and feet, touched my face and realized that
I was indeed intact. Holy Cow, I was completely untouched. Not even a
soot mark on me. Although I might possibly qualify as a human cannon
ball, there would be no Richard Pryor imitation tonight, folks.
I looked through the thick smoke toward the fireplace. What WAS a 6-inch
deep accumulation of one winter's ashes was now squeaky clean. Blasted
it right out. All those burning embers were now sitting on the deep-pile
carpet behind me. ALL over the room. I grabbed the little shovel from
the fireplace set and scooped as fast as I could. As soon as I filled
the shovel, I'd run to the fireplace, empty it and run back. Some embers
were 30 feet down the hall. I guess I set the Guiness World Record for
"Hot ember pickup with a little shovel" in those next few minutes. I did
manage to avoid setting my folks house on fire, and the carpet only had
one or two real serious melted spots on it. I DID find the deodorant can
too -- it had left the fireplace at some ungodly serious velocity, hit
the wall at the far end of the room and come to rest directly behind where
I was sitting. Dang thing was split wide open along the weld and peeled
back almost flat. Burned black, too. Looked like re-entry junk.
After I got the Fire Marshal Bill stuff under control, I grabbed beer
number five, popped the top and thought about how I was gonna get the
remaining mess cleaned up. Close examination revealed that everything
was coated with a heavy layer of ash. Heck, a vacuum cleaner will get
this stuff up no problem.
Gee, how lucky could I be? I didn't get decapitated, the house is still
on its foundation, I got a GREAT story for the grandkids and the cleanup
is gonna be a cinch. I grabbed my mom's upright out of the closet and
started to work.
Ever have one of those split-seconds of consciousness when you realize
you survived something really bad but you sense that it's not quite over
yet? Well, I never have, but I wish I had felt that way at this point.
Would have clued me in as to what was about to happen.
There I was, sucking up ashes with an upright vacuum. Too bad not all of
them were cold. That upright vacuum swallowed ONE LITTLE ITTY BITTY HOT
EMBER that was sitting there on the carpet. It flew right up inside it
and sat on that big ol' pile of carpet lint way up in that bag. Heck,
that bag hadn't been emptied in a long time. And all that air rushing in
there made that little bitty hot ember REAL happy. Next thing I know,
the side of that vacuum is glowing red hot. By the time I figured out
what was happening, there was a two foot flame blowing out a hole in the
side. It really looked and sounded sorta pretty, like a fighter jet on
full afterburner. Diamond shock pattern and all.
Again, my brain reverted to primordial slime mode. All higher-order
functions ceased and all I remember thinking was "T-h-r-o-w
v-a-c-u-u-m".
I pitched it as hard as I could towards the open basement door, hoping it
would make it to the patio outside. The distance was about 20 feet. In
slowmotion it looked like one of those old NASA films where the rocket
goes psycho right off the launch pad. There it was, sailing brush end
first with a nice slow roll...fire belching out the side. As the
unbilical pulled out of the wall, the flame settled into a long trail of
sparks. The vehicle had plenty of initial velocity and it looked like
a good downrange trajectory... right up to the point it passed through
the plate glass window to the right side of the door.
Yep, I swear this happened as written.
