ohbloodyhell8

This evening younger son came out of the bedroom after being tucked in as he usually has over the past few weeks.  Lucky for him I didn’t accuse him of crying wolf and send him straight back to the bedroom since tonight there was an actual problem.

Older son has been recording his music on a very old cassette player/recorder (think Walkman) that Hubby has had since before he knew me.  The thing is old.  Younger son said it was making noises.  I told him to tell his brother to turn it off.  Older son shouts out that it is off.  I ask him to bring it to me.  As he is walking down the hall with it he comments that it’s really hot.

The batteries were arcing.  They had already melted the battery compartment door.  Using a pot holder, I tried to open the door to get the batteries out.  I quickly realized how stupid of an idea this was since I didn’t know what the batteries would do when the door opened.  Visions of battery acid burning me and my sons flew out of the over-fed horror section of my imagination and I instead threw the tape recorder on the deck.

A couple of google searches later, I had discovered I had been on the right track, but needed protective gear.

I have none.

I called hubby to ask what his thoughts were.  He suggested putting it on the sidewalk and using a hammer to crack it open and then dislodging the batteries.  Off I went to get the hammer.

Thought to myself, I’ll wear my plastic rain coat and that will protect me.  Couldn’t find it.  I’ll stand as far away as I can or simply try throwing it on the sidewalk to crack it open.

That would be fun to do with the thunder and lightning in the background.  Maybe it will start to pour right as I get the batteries out.

Headed back to the deck to grab the tape recorder when the phone rang.  Hubby asked if I had done it yet and I said I was about to smash it.  He said don’t.  Obviously he had given it more thought.  He told me to take one of the two metal boxes in front of the house, remove the styrofoam, and simply put the tape recorder in there.  Then I’d place it as far away from the house but still on the concrete driveway as I could.

I headed downstairs and out the front door.  I picked what I thought was the more durable of the two boxes and set to removing the styrofoam.  Not a hard task.  The only real danger I faced was not realizing in the dark that there were still bits of kitty litter in there from the time a bag had split open four or five years ago.  As I turned the box right-side up from shaking out loose foam, litter flew out and a small bit landed in my right eye.  Yes, it got around my glasses and everything. The only protective gear I had by default were my glasses and they didn’t offer any protection.

But there was no time to deal with that.  I had batteries that could explode on my deck.  I went upstairs with the now-cleaned out metal box, grabbed my pot holder, and opened the sliding glass door.  Carefully picked up the tape recorder and then carelessly dropped it right into the box.  Closed the lid and headed back through the house, down the stairs, and out the front door.  Set the box in the far corner of the driveway.  As I walked away, the box exploded and I was hit with tiny pieces of metal…no, not really, but that is a more dramatic ending.

I walked away, went back in the house, and closed & locked the door.  Felt a wee bit like MacGyver in solving this problem with only a medical collection box and a pot holder.

I washed my hands  and rinsed my eye with the eye rinsing stuff (I don’t care how tightly you put that bloody cup to your eye, it leaks out of the side every damn time).  Then discovered, with some bit of shock, that MacGyver is spelled the way it’s spelled.  I always thought it was MacGuyver.  Who knew?

Then I watched some videos of AA batteries arcing and exploding.  Yeah, didn’t need to worry all that much other than not letting it leak onto my skin.  Still, I feel better.  That plastic had already melted…could it have caught on fire?  Possibly.  I didn’t want it to happen in here.

Funny thing is that when I realized what the batteries were doing, I kept telling my sons they were narcing.  Yeah, they were reporting illegal drug use.  I’m so bloody tired I couldn’t even get the right word out.  I just kept seeing John Travolta in Blow Out when the batteries from the wire arc and they are taped to the one cop’s skin.  Nasty.  Burned a hole right in his skin.  And that is why I had to be MomGyver.