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