Dumb Eric Story #2

Today is a great day!  I actually got my first new fan in about 5 weeks!  They must have hit the follow button by mistake or something!  In honor of that new follower I am going to repeat myself and let them know what a "Dumb Eric Story" is so that they know exactly the kind of dolt they chose to follow.  Any of my current followers that don't like it just need to suck it up for a minute.  Don't whine...  

Something that has become a tradition in my household is a phenomenon called the "DUMB ERIC STORY".  The phrase sort of speaks for itself but a "Dumb Eric Story" is simply something that I have done that is above average on the moron scale!  This is a favorite dinner time event that my daughters really love.  Of course I do have quite a bit of material to work with being the meat head that I am.  My girls will often yelp "Dad we want to hear a Dumb Eric Story - PLEASE!" They love it.  Good laughs!

Dumb Dad Himself!

It has gotten to the point where the kids that they go to school with and ride the bus with all know Dumb Eric stories too!  Kids I don't even know will come over to hang out & play (I hate the "play date" phrase so I will never use it on this blog!  Those who do will be chastised - beware moms!) and mention one of these stories that my little knucklehead kids have shared with them.  Nice to be so famous!  So every now and then I am going to bless the lucky 13 blog readers that I have amassed with a "Dumb Eric Story" to make my daughters publicizing of my idiocy a bit easier!  Some of these stories are from when I was a kid and some as an adult.  Some might argue that I have not found the divide between those 2 stages!  Ok enough bull here is the 2nd Dumb Eric Story.  Hmmmm which one to pick...Ok here goes.

    Ok so one day as a kid I was down in my favorite haven - Dad's workshop.  As some of you might know this was a glorious place with all kinds of cool solvents, tools, old motors, etc.  It was simply enchanting.  Most of the time there was about a 1 foot path through the place because my father had the van engine or transmission torn apart all over the place.

    On this particular day I was playing with a hair dryer that I pulled out of somebody's trash.  I am an eternal tinkerer and peoples trash was my heaven as a kid.  I still have never actually bought a push lawnmower - they are all peoples leftovers or trash.  I even have a lawnmower engine sitting on my workbench right now!  Somehow I got that piece of junk dryer up and running and I figured out that it could serve a great purpose to me in it's second lease on life.  

    I was probably about 11 years old or so at this point and it was around Christmas or my birthday.  I got a clay "Garfield the Cat" kit complete with molds, clay, and paint.  After fooling around with the hair dryer for a while I remembered I had this clay Garfield thing and also remembered you were supposed to bake the clay when you were done (with mom or dads help).  I looked at my newly fixed hair dryer and the lightbulb went on!  I can bake my Garfield with this thing!  I ran upstairs and got the clay thing and ripped it open hurriedly.  I pulled out the clay and threw it into the Garfield mold and molded myself a half assed cat.  It wasn't about the cat at this point - it was all about baking the thing with my hair dryer.

    I went into the workshop and propped Garfield up near the vise.  I clamped the hair dryer in the vise - flipped it on and let the baking begin.  I watched for a couple of minutes and saw some results - Garfield was starting to dry out but this was going to take some time.  Never very patient - I had the thing all set up so I shut the door to block out the whine from the re-manufactured hair dryer and decided to watch a television show in the next room (it actually happened to be the Brady Bunch - nope not lying).  I sat there and got engrossed in the show - Marcia was cute with those dimples and all.  I pretty much forgot about my little project in the next room. I think it might have been a commercial break or something but I lost attention in the TV long enough to listen for my hair dryer.  The whining sound was gone....It was replaced by some sort of crackling.  Hmmm - off the couch and into the room and what do I find?  

Flames as tall as me raging right where my hair dryer used to be.  Oh shit!  Yes I knew that word and many more at the time (one of the benefits of having a former Marine as a father).  I knew that I was in a little over my head so I yelled to my Father who was somewhere else in the house "Dad!  I have a fire here!"  I wasn't the kind of kid to cry wolf - plus if I could have managed the fire I would have tried (I had a lot of experience with fire!). 

   Dad came bounding downstairs and threw open the door which I had closed again.  The flames were now raging even higher and were burning right next to an open shelving unit with the highly explosive solvents that I so loved in it - See Dumb Eric Story #1.  My father had the presence of mind to remember a huge fire extinguisher that a Navy friend had given him that was in the workshop.  It had the letters PKP on the side.  He ran in there - dodged the flames and grabbed that baby and let loose with it right on the fire!  I never saw anything like it!  Dad really layed into that thing - he emptied the whole thing on my fire and rightly so.  Instantly the flames were gone but so was everything else.  You couldn't see your hand in front of your face.  There was a super fine talcum like powder totally filling the air.  We both stumbled out of the basement because we couldn't breath with all of that crap in the air.  The powder was everywhere!  All through the house the cloud spread.  Man oh man did I get in trouble - Mom was actually quite pissed too!  It was totally innocent but I was constantly doing this kind of thing and actually still have my days!  I swear if you go look into some of the untouched corners of that basement you will still find Purple Potassium Powder till this day!  It turns out that the wire to the hair dryer was crossing another extension cord and it got so hot that it melted through - arced and lit the sawdust on the floor on fire! 

   So the moral of the story is unless you have a big ass PKP fire extinguisher in the basement, don't let you're kid dry his or her new clay Garfield kit with a recycled trash hair dryer! 

Love,

Wacky Dad