When I was seventeen, I pruned the future of my own family tree.
(2002) Some friends and I had heard that you can make a plastic two-liter bottle explode by using dry ice and water to create pressure inside the capped bottle. We gathered up as many plastic soda bottles as we could, obtained dry ice from the icehouse, and planned targets for this particular brand of mayhem.
After the first "dry ice bomb" had gone off, we were left disappointed with the length of time it took to actually blow. Our first idea was to use a smaller bottle, but a one-liter bottle only created a weaker, but still painfully delayed, explosion. The second idea was to use warm water to drive a faster reaction with the dry ice. This created a more reasonable time for us to wait until the sweet satisfaction of being a successful teenage vandal came to fruition.
Now we became greedy. If warm water made it better, then hot water must make it even better still! Yours truly was the one to try it. I added ice, poured scalding hot water into the bottle, and capped the "bomb". I recall an immediate ringing in my ears, and blood, and plastic shards. The hospital was only a mile away, but it seemed like a light year.
At the hospital, I was rushed in and quickly assessed. Due to the way I had been cradling the bottle, my groin and thighs took most of the damage from plastic shrapnel. At the age of thirty, I have many scars to remind me of my teenage stupidity, but none as monumental as my pair of silicone testes!
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