My underrated friend, Mr Curiosity

They say curiosity killed the cat. I disagree. In my younger years I lived my life following a path set out by Mr Curiosity himself. This is a post about a few of the situations I willingly put myself into as a pre-teen.

We are all guilty of the thought process “They told us not to…so we did” the first instance I recall fits into this category. I was around 7 years old and playing in the back yard of my dads’ store. There was a wild bee-hive back there then and I thought I could get some honey from it. I already knew that bees stung (thanks to a prank pulled by my older brother) but in my cocky state of mind thought I could kick the hive, leg it to safety, come back later and eat the delicious honey.

This is what actually happened.

I kicked the bee hive, ran as fast as my chubby legs could take me (…not faster than a bee…) towards the door getting stung several times on my face and ears on the way. I got to the door to find that it was closed, a few seconds delay to open the door cost me a few stings but I got inside slammed the door behind me and slumped onto the floor (heart rate ± 250 bpm) before the whole cry and run to dad procession. After all that I didn’t bother going back for the honey.

The next two situations I recollect are examples of how curiosity can have less than spectacular outcomes. Ever wondered what was inside a battery? How did that little cell make stuff move and light up? One quiet corner, an AA battery and bread knife was all it took for me to learn that the insides of batteries are indeed very boring. It was the same with deodorant. The can clearly stated:

“DANGER! DO NOT PUNCTURE, EVEN WHEN EMPTY!”

So there I was, knife in one hand, empty deo-can in the other. I brought the two together repeatedly in a less than safe stabbing action at arms length whilst wincing and peering through as narrow a gap as my quivering eyelids would allow me to look between. My ass cheeks clenched and my body rebounded as I dropped the can after finally piercing through the metal. All that building up… and nothing happened, NADA! I was relieved and annoyed at the same time to be honest.

The last story is as a direct result of the following equation:

Firecrackers + x = (Curiosity)²

Where ‘x’ is basically anything, anywhere, anytime…

This equation is applicable to all boys between 6 and 15 years old and is often paired with the following reaction:

Firecrackers + x => y

Where ‘y’ entails having an extra pair of undies nearby and the probability of ‘y’ occurring is directly proportional to the length of the fuse…

Amongst the hundreds of crazy things I did with fireworks, this is the one that stood out most (I’ll have to post specifically on this topic at some point in time, so many stories…).

Do you remember tom thumbs?

These little crackers hardly even made a pop. They did have something going for them though. You see I figured out that there was always some residual gunpowder left in the case after a pop. You could light this and get a teeny weeny split second flash followed by a puff of smoke…. OR, you could save up all the dead tom-thumb cases till you have a tupperware full, empty all the powder onto the floor in a big heap with a line of narrow powder leading to the big heap to act as a fuse (like in Tom and Jerry…).

The plan was:

Light the trail fuse

Run inside the house

Look out the window

Observe spectacular display of pyrotechnics from safety

What happened:

Light the trail fuse

Realise that it’s WAY to short given the reaction speed

Close eyes

‘y’

Extinguish eyebrows

Change undies

In the end I can honestly say that curiosity often landed up entertaining the cat, hurting the cat, boring the cat to death (figuratively speaking) and sometimes giving the cat an eye popping adrenalin rush. After all I’m still alive and in retrospect, curiosity induced situations from yesteryear have contributed more towards my life than my death. I’d still kill the cat for kicks though (or at most scare the number 2 out of it).

2009, the year of the lemon cream.

One always hears about amazing parties and over the top ways of celebrating the new year. Opportunistic people normally use this event to take advantage of the masses by predicting Armageddon, releasing songs with '...2009...' in the lyrics, selling phony 2009 computer fixes... It's all good though. New years is probably the only event that is celebrated throughout the world by all people.

As the Earth rotates and 12:00 pm ticks over fireworks simultaneously light the night sky in every time zone. I really was amused at how competitive all of the big cities are with their fireworks. Every year the displays get bigger and bigger as they try to out compete each other. Watching some of the replays on TV I noticed that the displays have reached such a scale that nobody can actually see the fireworks after the first 3 or so seconds past midnight, there is just too much smoke from the first round of explosives.

New years celebrations tend to be tricky for me. The general trend is for people to get drunk and do...drunk people activities. Not an option for me (for obvious reasons). I've been to a few of these street parties and I was not particularly fond of being soaked in champagne (or in one case having beer poured onto my head and back) so I've avoided them for years.

My average new years consists of going home for a chat with my family, braai, a game of cards followed by a brief 'yay' at 12 and then bed (i've even fallen asleep while waiting for 12pm). This year was even less spectacular, I wasn't at home so I just played computer games till 12 and then decided I needed to do something else. I settled on having a cup of tea. It was a subtle rooibos and camomile blend with a hint of honey. Not nearly as wreckless as my previous experiences so I decided to have a buscuit too, a lemon cream.

YUM!

(Gosh! I am getting old.)