Last time I was in trouble with the police, I nearly got arrested for playing sardines in Sloan Hall. That particular group of Young Adults was classic bad company--the group that also decided on a different Friday night to explore the steam tunnels under the campus police station.
Having raised a whole new pack of bad company, I found myself in trouble with the police again last Monday afternoon. Well, if your kids suggested popping old milk jugs and Seven-up bottles with dry ice and water, would you think that was a bad idea? I did have them all wear eye protection (snorkel masks, old sun glasses, hockey eye shields, swim goggles) and gloves, and I was more or less supervising the activity from the kitchen. True, I though it would sound like a pop gun, and the first blast sounded more like a land mine, but really! How many fun ideas are there left for your average over-supervised, wii-zombie type all American boy? We have no "system," and so we're constantly on the lookout for good clean fun. Like dry ice bombs.
Ben's mom arrived to pick him up and the two of us were chatting in the kitchen. She had just finished saying, "No, I'm glad you let them blow up the milk cartons. I'm delighted to think of him playing out in the yard instead of sitting in front of a screen," when the police officer rang the door bell.
Now, I do realize that I had failed in my due diligence, as later info from the web confirmed. For example, I did not realize that the 2 liter pop bottle they exploded went off with 200 psi of blast force. And I didn't realize that dry ice bombs are explicitly illegal in four states, and quasi illegal in 46 others. I felt that his point about incurring large legal fees while trying to spring my kids from jail or juvy was well made if inaccurate in our particular situation. BUT as far as the dry ice bombs blowing the kids' hands off...well, even after extensive research, I think that nice officer was just perpetuating an urban myth. In fact, I feel so strongly about this that I'm going to let all of YOU vote on it! That's right, my first ever poll!
Ben's mom was very nice about the visit from the law, although she looked just a little tense as she hustled him out the door. *Sigh.* You'd think just one of the members of the MTC would have some common sense. You'd think that would be me.
Other shorts:
Zach ref'ed two games in a roaring blizzard on Saturday morning, then took the bus to the corner of Northwest and Bakerview and slogged home through six inches of wet snow wearing...you got it! His ref shorts and his ref socks pulled as far up his thighs as they could go. Where was I? At Cub Scout Day Camp registration and Adjudications, frantically calling to try to get him a ride, but never able to connect with him even after I did. Tom was in balmy Nashville. We got a letter from the ref coordinator that might as well have been addressed to "Zach Mumford" and which explicitly outlined ALL the cold weather gear you can wear to a Youth League game under your uniform--including under armour, a black hat, black gloves, black track pants, and even a winter coat under your long sleeved ref shirt! Poor kid. He still seems to like the job.
Alex had a great adjudication! And pleaded with me to take him to play his soccer game in the snow. Too bad it got canceled.
Porter kept scratching open a sore on his nose so he had to wear a lampshade this week. It made him even more spastic than usual, and you could hear him, night and day, charging through the house sending chairs, toys, and small children flying as he whapped them full-on with the lamp shade. He was completely unembarrassed at having to wear the contraption and continued to charge through the door to welcome visitors, knocking them off their feet and imprinting a circle on their chests (with a tongue mark in the middle).
8 comments:
I had no idea about your sketchy past....
I really want to vote- I just don't know anything about dry ice bombs. I will vote, but it will be a very ignorant one, I'm sorry. :-)
You didn't mention Porter's inability to go upstairs..that's pretty funny.
There are much safer, less illegal bombs-such as a bit of TheWorks toilet cleaner shaken in a bottle with some tinfoil will blow out the plastic and make a huge noise-great for paint balling land mines, by the way. Throw one out behind you while someone's chasing you through the woods, and it will give them a pretty good scare(This is pretty much guaranteed not to injure, just don't put shrapnel in it!
I’m voting NO! How can a mother approve of things that explode anywhere near her beloved children? Gpa Harris knew enough to be far away from a mother of any kind when he and his buddy set off their homemade bomb. Maybe they, too, got more bang than they planned for, because even though they were half a block away, the ear-splitting crack brought Willard Larsen’s mother anxiously out of her house. However, she wasn’t worried about the safety of her squirrelly son, she thought SHE had caused the explosion because she had just flushed lye down her malfunctioning toilet. Gpa left on the run. I can only imagine what happened to Willard.
Wait, are we voting if the kids should be able to make bombs or whether dry ice bombs would blow a hand off? I suppose that if you're only using milk jugs and 2L plastic bottles, there's no way you could do more than some minor lacerations. Final verdict: the bombs are as lethal to hands as those Fisk St. berries were poisonous. Your kids should also be advised that liquid nitrogen - the sort you can get from a doctors office or a chem grad student who is your scoutmaster - can be put to good use as well.
I guess I am still unsure as to what we are voting on. I vote for creative activities that keep kids away from screens and active. I am glad the good doctor weighed in.
hilarious!
My brothers and my dad made bombs all the time. They talked about what they blew up and what flew how far. I never understood.
Post a Comment