Saturday 30 April 2022

The time I built the world's largest fun snap....

I saw a friend on FB ask if anybody ever got up to mischief born out of boredom while grounded, and it took me back many years to a time when my stupidity blew up in my face, LITERALLY!



I'd always wondered if fun snaps (pictured above) could be fun for teenagers like they were when I was younger. As a kid we'd lay them on the pavement and down back alleys waiting for somebody to trigger them like some kind of Goonies inspired booby traps.

Well one day I bought 6 boxes and stashed them in my room waiting for a rainy day so I could create my explosive masterpiece. I can't remember exactly why I got sent to my room, but it seemed like the perfect opportunity to create my 'megasnap'.

I took a cardboard tube from a toilet roll and began to unravel the regular snaps and lay out the explosives on a sheet of paper. With every finished box I'd gently load the tube with more and more, and it was going great, until I finished box four that is........

I suppose in hindsight it was the weight of the combined snaps that began a chain reaction, and I vividly remember a loud BOOM, a bright flash, intense pain in my face and the smell of barbecue.

Grit was launched from the tube with such force that it embedded in my cheek, I'm not sure how hot it was but it most definitely burned like a bitch and I had visions of becoming the deaf English version of Freddy Krueger. My hearing was completely gone in my left ear and a strange buzzing in my right was probably the only thing that told me I hadn't booked a one way flight to heaven.

72 hours it took for my hearing to come back, my bedroom resembled the Sahara desert as there was that much sand/dust covering every surface.

I'm pretty sure I could do better as an adult, what do you think??