Jul 27 2006
I will make a cup of dark, mysterious, uncharted tea
Not too long ago, a certain someone left a comment asking about why my various brothers should never, ever be left with anything vaguely resembling explosives.
My quick answer would be, have you met my brothers, but then just as quickly you all would say No. No we haven’t[1]
I’m not sure how the conversation began, I was in the pub teaching de gasur[2] all about the flashy lights of pub quiz games. But when I came out B#2 was reminiscing about the time he gotten a tube of some pipe or other, and filled it with the heads of thousands of matches, as well as some other form of explosive. To which [tag]B#1[/tag] commented, “That’s a pipe-bomb.” B#2 nodded, as though it is the most natural thing in the world.
And of course once the stories of explosives began they had to continue. B#1 has gotten some sort of souvenir from an uncle. He had served in the Lebannon[3] and had brought back some presents. As you do, you know the sort of thing I’m talking about. Amour-piercing shells[4] and the like. It’s still around, although at one stage B#1 was going to take it apart. For once sense seems to have intervened and he didn’t.
Then there were the stories about the potassium. And how easy it was to remove from chemistry class, and how he wondered exactly what’d happen if he threw it in a puddle. And how a first year came out just as the water began to fizz, and jumped over the puddle just in time. Not to mention the neat trick of getting repeating banger type things[5] and sticking them in someone’s schoolbag to watch them hop about as they tried to escape.
And those bangers prompted B#4 to recall the time he and the cronies had rolled up 100[6] of these repeaters and stuck ‘em in a tube to see what would happen[7]
Remember Homer Simpson and the hose incident “Hmm, it doesn’t seem to be working. I’ll just raise the pipe to my eye -” Yup. That is exactly what the ever so smart B#4 did. Luckily enough it was after he had taken a glance and then left the pipe down again that the last of the bangers exploded.
Such a surprise, as he was never a pyro as a kid, and never ever used to light almost every match in the box just because. Or have fun putting his finger through the flame, or messing with aerosols and flame[8] And then of course he had the story of how, when setting off some fireworks, decided to light one in his hand. All was going well. Fuse lit, he was looking away so it wouldn’t blind him, and he let go. Only then he heard something funny. The firework had gotten caught in his sleeve and was still hanging there, by his hand.
How on earth he still has his hand I don’t quite know.
So B#1 comes back with his story is sitting in the back of class one day, scraping the gunpowder out of a shell[9] So, the busy little bee is using a metal something-or-other[10] to scrape out the [tag]gunpowder[/tag]. Has almost all of it out when oops, scraped a litte too hard and bang! Cloud of smoke over his head.
B#5 had no stories to share. A point that B#4 was keen to point out. Saying that the younger generation of locals[11] are too into their sport to drink and mess about.
My brothers, suspended? Never. All as good as gold they were.
- apart from NM ↩
- the nephew ↩
- 20 years ago-ish ↩
- as Anne pointed out, this is a typo, although such a great one I can’t fix it ↩
- I must have missed out of this part of my teenage life ↩
- maybe more, maybe less, but a substantial number ↩
- another case of as you would I think ↩
- I’m guessing you all understand that by never I actually mean quite often right? ↩
- I’m not sure exactly what it was the gunpowder was coming out of. Only, it was metal. ↩
- to give it its official title ↩
- there is all of 3 years, maybe, age difference ↩
