This all started with my good friend Beth, who happens to be the gifted teacher at my school. After today's near death experience, I will now refer to her as the teacher of the gifted, not the gifted teacher. Kidding! I love Beth and she's an excellent teacher, BUT Beth and the science teachers wanted to do something "cool" for the first science club meeting and after several attempts at less deadly experiments, we decided it would be "cool" to explode a milk jug using isopropyl alcohol. I must confess that I got the idea from my friend Kristi, back in Effingham. Please understand that Kristi has done this same experiment a hundred times and has NEVER had a near death experience. Well.... this morning we decided to do a trial run before having to do this experiment in front of young children. :) Beth and I went outside to the front parking lot. On the way Beth says that maybe we should have told our principal just in case something went wrong and we ended up laid out on the front lawn of the school. But, we'd walked half way out by then and since Beth promised that in the event of a mishap, she'd make sure my skirt was pulled back down over my butt before the newspaper arrived to photograph the scene of the accident, I figured there was no harm in leaving our principal in the dark. It was quite humid outside and the matches would not stay lit long enough for us to ignite the alcohol inside the milk jug. Fail. Beth, the "teacher of the gifted" thinks it'd be a great idea to do this inside the science lab. We watched a trial run on youtube and saw no near death experiences. So, like a big dummy I followed her into the lab. Same result. Fail. Then, our principal, now referred to as "Bill Nye the science guy, wanders by and says "what y'all need is some more ALKYHOL. So, Beth adds more "ALKYHOL". That's when it all went awry. When I lit the jug, it literally shot across the room with an afterburner 2 feet long following it. It ricocheted off the aquaculture tank and came flying back towards the front of the room. I immediately yelled some words not good for tender ears, and ran towards the door screaming for Beth to get the fire extinguisher. The lab counter was on fire, along with several other things that are all a blur now. Beth, in her best Schwarzenegger impression, pulls the pin on the fire extinguisher and sprays it from one end of the lab to another while I continue to scream like a banshee. When my lungs filled up with the residue, I stumbled out of the lab missing one of my brand new easy spirit pumps.
Our media specialist rounds the corner about the same time as I come stumbling out followed by a puff of smoke. She yells and asks if I'm okay. I'm thinking my new shoe has been incinerated! Then I remember Beth! I opened the door and I couldn't see anything. I yelled for Beth and she coughed like a pack a day smoker but stumbled out behind me! We both about wet our pants. Beth had her legs crossed and was bent over laughing and trying not to pee everywhere. About that time, Bill Nye the Science Guy rounds the corner and of course asks what the $%$# just happened? I yelled TOO MUCH ALKYHOL!
While cleaning up, we found a roach on it's back and all 6 legs were lying unattached beside it- the only casualty of our experiment. It was a great day y'all. My hair is a little crunchy this evening, but it's all good!
No comments:
Post a Comment