Semi-Explosive

In light of my last post, I begin this one by telling you that something blew up again. In fact, two things blew up, so I have to start this story at the very beginning of my day, when the first thing blew up in my face.

I’ve already elaborated on my close relationship with coffee, so I won’t go into detail on that again. Suffice it to say that I was pressing myself a coffee on this particular fine morning...

Now, the way my coffee press works is kind of a tube within a tube and I have to push down on it to get all the water-turned-coffee pushed out. Since I’m pretty sure the bestest, blackest coffee comes out at the end, I like to bear down pretty hard and get every drop out.

Unfortunately, I was recently buying some coffee and had my senses hijacked by the tantalizing smell of hazelnut coffee. Completely hoodwinked, I didn’t even see the label that read ‘light’. LIGHT! LIGHT COFFEE?! IF I WANTED LIGHT COFFEE, I WOULD JUST STAND OVER SOME BEANS AND SNIFF A BIT!

But, like, whatever. I could quit any time.

So I was pressing this despicable, light coffee, inhaling the scent of the grounds (since the hazelnut ‘flavour’ really just means the grounds smell like hazelnut until water touches them).

Maybe I was pressing harder than normal out of spite for the light grounds; maybe I’m just really strong (I don’t know if you know this, but I’m really strong).

In any case, as I was pressing, or, rather, muscling the last few drops out, the plunger gave way suddenly.

POOF!

It ‘sploded in my face. My sweater, face, and hair were showered with coffee and some errant grounds, and the surrounding walls also took a goodly splattering.

The press wasn’t broken, thank goodness; I can quit anytime, but I’m sure not planning on it.

Since we were heading in to do the spring cleaning at our church, I had to wash my glasses and change my sweater quickly.

It made me smell nice, though.

In hindsight, which is my best sight, the morning was just a foreshadowing of the explosion to come.

The morning and most of the afternoon was spent at our church, where a crew of parishioners had gathered to scrub pews, wipe walls, mop floors, wash windows, and vacuum heat registers. If you’re like me and have never thought to vacuum out your heating vents, go you now and do this thing. Better yet, get someone else to do it, because it is gross. I must have knocked off a couple of my years in purgatory doing such a gross job for the church. Unfortunately, I’m getting them back by complaining about it, but it needs to be said.

Besides the litters of dust bunnies, I also pulled Shelob-sized clumps of flies a la cobweb out. Mostly the vacuum growled through the unknowns down there, but sometimes it would get blocked, and I’d have to pull it out and feed it through in a line. My head told me I should probably not feed some of that to the vacuum cleaner, but my heart, which is the next-door neighbour of my gag reflex, told me to poke it on in with my shoe. It also told me to never to touch my shoes again. It also reminded me that I used to put my mom’s vacuum cleaner to my mouth to suction my lips. My heart tells me a lot of stuff.

Anyway, the worst thing was the mouse skeleton that I pulled up. That one, I figured I really should listen to my head on, and not suck it up. After agreeing with my head on that, my heart did still try to accidentally-on-purpose suck it up. It didn’t go. Even after I poked at it. Accidentally, of course.

I had to get the dust pan.

Anyway, that is not where the explosion happened. That was just a tangent to elaborate my selfless act of vacuuming church registers.

The explosion happened after we got home.

Our neighbour is buying some semi-truck tires from us, but there is some dis-assembly required on them. That is to say, they are still on the old semi-truck that’s been sitting on the curb for a few years.

Our plan was to tow the truck down the road the half mile to our neighbour’s, then work on the tire exchange there. This is because he has the most boss air impact wrench. I'm not even just saying that because farmers like to be jealous of other farmer's equipment. Like, when Dad saw that air impact working he complimentary asked where the neighbour got it. To return the compliment, the neighbour kindly asked Dad where he had gotten his pry-bars. Social etiquette among farmers is an intricate dance.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself... I think Dad was feeling the effects of relief to not be cleaning stuff anymore. He was positively giddy as we headed out to start the tractor.

“I should push the corals out later, so it’s done before it rains... does it sound like it’s going to rain?” He asked me.

Since we have the exact same sense of humour, we both cupped a hand to an ear and pretended to be listening for the rain.

When we looked over at each other for affirmation on the stupid joke, we both just had to roll our eyes. When everybody cracks a pun, there’s no one left to laugh at the pun anymore.

I’m not sure if this was a moment of fatherly pride for him, for having raised me so successfully, or if it was more of a horrific realization that he’s created a monster.

Anyway, more on Dad humour later...

We hooked the tractor to the semi and I pulled with the tractor while Dad steered the semi.

Though the parts truck in question has been sitting idle, the process of rusting has not: the brakes were all rusted on. So instead of going right to the neighbours, we dragged the truck to our own shop to try and get the brakes off.

After hitting the brakes with a metal bar didn’t work (I thought it would - hitting stuff with metal bars rarely does nothing), Dad thought we’d try to hook the air tank to the truck. I’m not going to try to explain what he was going for, because I don’t pretend to know what’s going on. I strongly suspect that it had something to do with air brakes, though. Look at me go.

I was also the one to locate the hose that would hook to the air tank. Just look at me go. It was definitely because I almost hit my face on it, but I’m not going to argue with progress.

Anyway, I snapped the hose onto that and the air started hissing in.

It didn’t seem to matter what we tried, the brakes remained firmly in place. That being said, I don’t really know what we tried, ‘we’ being Dad. There was brake-pumping involved, and also line-plugging, and I had to stand with my face by the brakes to see if they were moving.

I don’t like to stand with my face next to things under pressure. Dad knows this, I’m sure. This isn’t a sense that I get; rather, whenever we are filling a tire, he waits until my face gets lined with worry, then shouts, “BOOM!” Someday, a tire is going to blow up in my face, and I just hope his is there, too.

Since we’re on the topic of blaming Dad for my anxieties, let me just relive the moment when still-in-a-booster-seat me was sitting front and centre in the truck as we traversed a winding path towards a river.

“Uh oh, it’s the end of the road,” Dad said. I didn’t know that the road didn’t drop sharply off into the rushing river, as it appeared to. I didn’t know that it turned gently and continued along the not-rushing river.

“OH NO! NO BRAKES!” Dad shouted, probably prompted by the lines of worry breaking a trail on my chubby, child face. I didn’t know he was joking. I didn’t even know what a joke was.

I was in a booster seat.

And I was inconsolable.

I screamed and cried and my tiny life flashed before my terrified eyes.

This is one of my earliest and clearest memories, and the one that I blame for the driving-near-water-related anxieties I have.

Anyway, this time, Dad didn’t even have to make the sound effects, because as we (Dad) were doing something, a thing finally did happen. An explosion thing.

POW! CLANK! ASSORTED ONOMATOPOEIA!

According to my reliable source (Dad), the air brake pot blew up!

This time, I am not just overreacting! This was a real big, not-supposed-to-happen explosion! When Dad looked under the truck to see what blew, he looked shocked!

When we told the neighbour, he looked shocked! When we told Mom, even she, with only a slightly less limited mechanical knowledge than myself, looked shocked!

There is a large spring in this air brake pot, and also there is aluminum involved. I know this because when we drove away, there were bits of aluminum and a big, iron spring on the ground.

I have little other knowledge about this thing, other than to be shocked if it blows up.

And also, never to go near one, because I could get killed if it blows up (I’ve come to that conclusion on my own).

Yay for more things to be scared of.

Anyway, with the brakes locked up and the tires being the only useful thing on that truck anyway, we had to find another way to get it down the road without ruining those tires.

Since the front ones were turning, the only thing we could do was use the tractor to lift the back end up and push the thing down the road.

Here’s where we get to the trust exercise part of the story. This is why I included that bit about the shared sense of humour; I could never trust someone as much as I do him if they didn’t crack a bad pun every now and then (or rather, quite constantly).

Dad drove the tractor behind and I steered the truck.

The steering on the semi had to be man-handled (good thing I’m strong - have I mentioned that before?), but that wasn’t so bad. The bad part was that I had no control other than that. And Dad had all the control except for that. Between the two of us, we operated one massive, cumbersome locomotive down the grid road.

Also, Dad couldn’t see past the semi. Did I mention that? Did I mention that the guy with all the forward-motion control couldn’t see what was in front of what he was driving?

I kept having to talk myself through that stressful half mile and two left turns.

“Oh my word. Ohhhhh my wooooord, I want to slow down. I can’t slow down. What if I need to stop? I can’t stop. Dad won’t let me go in the ditch. Dad can’t see. Oh, but he’ll stop us. But what if I can’t turn this thing? Oh, Dad will stop us.

He can stop but he can’t see! And I can see but I can’t stop!”

These thoughts ran through my mind on a loop as I panicked and talked myself out of panic over and over.

Chuck wagon drivers call their line of work the ‘half mile of hell’, but they’ve never steered their wagons while the horses pushed from the back. I think Dad must have felt as though he’d left his horses to steer as he pushed the wagon.

The half-mile to the neighbour's was traversed successfully, though, and I think the trip back will be that semi’s swan song.

Now, the story part of my story is over, but I mentioned that I would talk about some Dad humour more.

This isn’t really that, but I couldn’t think of a way to lead into it organically, so here it goes: A Short Dad Story...

Once upon a time (hahaha, you’ll appreciate that later), the second hand in my watch broke off (I thought it would be longer until you could appreciate the opening pun).

I eventually opened up my watch and took it out, as it was disrupting the other two hands. I believe we had company at the time (haha), so I was sitting at the table, playing with the tiny metal stick. Eventually, I set it down and thought, “I should throw this out. Someone might step on it; it’s pretty sharp.”

As in many situations when I think something to myself, I didn’t listen to me.

A few days went by and I didn’t think anything of the second hand on my watch. I guess you could say, I didn’t give it a second thought (hahahahahaha).

In light of the fact that I spent no thoughts on that hardware, it is surprising that it leapt instantly into my memory when, at lunch one day, Dad pulled a tiny, glinting piece of metal from his mouthful of skillet.

Skillet, by the way, is Mom’s new kick. It’s how she gets rid of leftovers. It’s like a casserole, but served in a frying pan. Potato on the bottom, cheese on the top, and adventure in the middle.

Anyway, Dad turned to Mom in outrage, holding out the second hand. I looked on, and despite the horrified guilt, puns began springing up in my mind.

“Good thing you took a second to chew your food.”

“Yikes; Mom could have had a hand in cooking your death if that got caught in your intestine.”

“Wow. I didn’t think Mom followed recipes in minute detail like that.”

“You must be ticked that you were the one to find that.”

“We’d really get the gears if that got stuck in your teeth.”

“Good thing you watch what you eat.”

“Don’t clock me; I can be serious.”

“I’ll definitely throw stuff like that in the garbage next time.”

These things were running through my mind, but what I really said was something along the contrite lines of, “Oh no! That’s mine! Oh no! It’s from my watch; it broke and I took it out the other day and left it sitting on the table!”

Dad frowned at me and began to elaborate on how it could have caused him a slow, painful death.

I felt bad. Really. I knew he was right and I was thankful that he’d found the hand and not swallowed it.

But all I could think of was puns.