Blowing shit up

Along the lines of 'Watch This' is blowing shit up. I don't know what it is, but ever since I was a little kid, I loved blowing shit up. There is NOTHING like a well-placed explosion.

Man, when 4th of July came around, I'd get fireworks from wherever I could (they're illegal in NY), open them up to take the powder out, and then make my own, better stuff. I mean those Roman candles and the other shit is nice, but I go for the boom. The bigger the better. The best is the shatter windows, get the kids off the street, make you pee your pants kind. I don't need pretty colors, nice displays, none of that bullshit, I want the largest explosive force possible to come out of the smallest space.

I tell you, all my fucking around when I was a kid gave me an aptitude for it. When I went into the Air Force, my skill with gunpowder was recognized. I walked around with a woody the entire four years I was with Special Operations Command because they'd LET me blow up a lot of shit. Buildings, vehicles, outhouses, enemy gun positions, man, all they had to do was say 'have at it', and it would be leveled in no time. They let me play with grenades, C-4, and a whole host of things that went boom. I was in heaven. That ended when I went to SAC, where they wouldn't let me near ANY of the nukes. It's not like I would have blown up Ft. Worth, I would have taken it to a respectable distance, like Moscow (at that time it was the Soviet Union who posed the biggest threat), but they still wouldn't give in. Go figure.

Once I got out, I had to make my own fun again. 4th of July was good, but after grenades and plastic explosive it just wasn't the same. Also that a cop lived across the street from me put a damper on the fun. The town also took exception to me blowing a hole out of the freshly-paved street, but I was proving a point to the Indian and about 20 others gathered nearby. They didn't believe my stories of my prowess with explosives and I had to convince them. Even the town guys believed me after that, so did the cops.

A good day was when we had an airbag recall at Ford when I worked for them. We ended up with about 20 that the factory didn't want back. Well hell, we just took a battery, long jumper cables, and all the airbags out in the lot and set them off one at a time. Well, that was until we got the visit from the boys at the NYPD 105th Precinct in Queens Village. Seems they were getting calls about 'shots fired' at the Ford dealer. Some folks can't take a joke.

Harry doesn't like me blowing shit up either. I can't blame him, we have a lot of glass around the shop. There was one time though, Indian and I told one of the little old ladies (a customer) we'd fix her wheelbarrow tire. Man, we tried and tired to seat the bead, but the little wheel didn't fit on our tire machine and we couldn't get it to inflate and seal. I looked to the Indian and said, yes indeed, 'watch this'!

Took the tire outside along with a can of ether. We filled the tire with ether and stood back. I guess we got a little overboard with the flammable liquid because when I threw the match at it . . .

Let's just say that when the wheel and tire combination came back down and stopped bouncing, the bead was sealed. The boom got Harry out the office in record time, and that's before he got his bad hip replaced. He called us the usual names (you're a bunch of fucking assholes) but we got the job done. Got a 5$ tip from the old lady too.

Mrs. Fixer does not allow me to have explosives anymore. She says I'm too dangerous, and fails to realize the years of experience I have. I think she's worried I might blow up the neighbor I don't like. And she told me to take the RPG and rocket launcher off my wish list on eBay. Much as I love Mrs. F, sometimes she's no fun. I guess I shouldn't have made that remark about the ice cream man who plays the tune, the same tune, all fucking day long as he goes up and down the blocks in my neighborhood. One well-placed RPG would quiet it substantially. You listen to 14 hours of 'It's A Small World" or some shit and tell me you won't want to blow something to atoms. Hell, I probably could get him on the next block from my livingroom window. Oh well, I'll have to figure out something else.