Immaculate Combustion

Have you ever had a sibling that seemed to be able to get away with anything?  Both my brother and half-sister were practically bathed in Teflon, while I couldn't get away with much.

"Gee Chris, I think thou doth protest too much"

Really?  To those that might think along these lines, let me ask you one simple question: did you have a sibling set off a 1/4 stick of dynamite in the house and not get in trouble for it?

Yep, this happened in my house.


I was in the living room, watching our one channel of TV when I heard the loudest commotion I had heard in my 16 years of life, followed by a series of small popping explosions.  It scared the crap out of me and I yelled at my brother, who didn't respond.

Running upstairs I found my brother up in his room, frantically sweeping up bits of paper.  His room was thick with smoke and these bits of paper where everywhere.  I asked him what the hell had happened and he explained that he had "accidentally" lit off his charge.  Some friends of the family did Civil War re-enactments and given Wonder Boy a cannon simulation charge which was equivalent to a 1/4 stick of dynamite.  He was walking down the back stairs with the charge in one hand and a lighter in the other and it "just happened".

This immaculate combustion freaked him out and he ran into his room where he had a 50 Caliber ammo can filled with firecrackers.  He managed to latch the lid before diving out of his room.  These ammo cans are roughly a foot long and six inches wide.  The resulting explosion ripped the hinges off the box and changed the can's dimensions to six inches long by a foot wide.  Pieces of hinge went through the wall, the window, and into his waterbed.  Fortunately the waterbed had an extremely thick waterbed mattress. The blanket and sheets weren't so fortunate and suffered a good, foot-long scorch as the metal burned through before bouncing off the mattress.  A bunch of the firecrackers burnt off in the initial blast and the rest went off immediately after.

Of course my brother was freaking out.  My father was due home in 15 minutes and he thought he was going to get killed.  We started cleaning up, picking up the mess, covering up the hole in the wall, knocking out the rest of the pane of broken glass, and making up a new bed.  I had to take a bit of a break from doing this when the neighbors came over.  No, they hadn't heard the explosion.....but they heard me swearing at the top of my lungs.

My father didn't come home in 15' like we expected, but in about 30'.  He stopped at a friend's house halfway across town.  Of course he had already heard all about it there before he came home.

My brother only got a slap on the wrist in that he had to pay for the damages he caused.  Seriously?  He "accidentally" lights a 1/4 stick of dynamite in the freakin house and that's it?!