A story...

[Delmonico]

Real men need to charge their batteries once in a while.   My car ain't been started in near a week,  the 27th, perhaps I should do that to day and play with that wire that goes into the center of the distibulator.

[El Peludo]

Stuff like this just bothers the heck out of me.  I am an electrician, although a retired one, and have been "bit" more times than I care to think about. 

Yeah, the stories are somewhat amusing, and some that I could tell would get a laugh out of folks - myself included, but I just can't shake the "OMYGAWD and OUWITCH THAT HURT".

Sheesh!  What a hypocrite I am.  Here I am feeling a little abivalent about this, and at the same time, I get this mental picture of Del's rearend steaming on that bridge, and I can't stifle a chuckle.  I cut into a hot 220 circuit one time (it was supposed to be dead), while sitting on a green concrete floor, and the spot where I had been sitting was steaming - me, I ended up doing the "stupid dance" in the middle of the room, and hurt for a week after; found my dikes stuck in the wall 20 feet away.  I can laugh at it now, but it sure hurt then. 

[Old Top]

El Peludo,

Been there done that and got the stupid tee shirt.

Old Top

[Blondetta]

Ah, the human male.  Thanks for the best laugh I've had, in ages.  Here I thought only my cousin David, did those things.   I do have to applaud you for admitting this.  It'll be a longtime before, you'll live this down.  

[El Peludo]

Well, Miz Blondetta, I "raised" a few apprentices in my time, too, and I had a "lady" or several that did the same sort of dumb things - must be occupational instead of gender origin; if yer gonna mess withthem "killywiggles", yer gonna get "SHOCKED"

[Delmonico]

The only 'vantage wimmin's got's around 'leg-tricity is they have a harder time peein' on the 'lectric fence.  Been there, seen it done, to smart to do it.

[Marshal'ette Halloway]

 Had a time that we were fixin fence and I was on one of the gentle geldings, cause I needed to be off and on and wanted the horse to stand there by me and not roam off. I do the minor fixin..but the men to the major stuff. We were riding about 800 acres of fence line that day so i was way down yonder a piece and the men were up on the ridge working behind me.
Well I had all my stuff.. pliers, staples and some long wire marking flags things.
I would mark the places that the wire needed restrung totally, by sticking one of the wires with the flag on the fence spot.

Well I was working up at the draw by the river, where we had a long section that we had strung electric wire to keep the calves from going down the huge draw right there. The fence wire had been dropped on the ground so we could work.. but someone forgot to disconnect the juice.
I didn't know this.

I was finished with what I was doing with the last part of the regular fence line in that area, so I proceeded to gather up my stuff. I swung up on my horse and the wires from the flags had got crossways in my belt off my chaps.. and they stick that ole gelding in the side and he gave a huge crow hop and  when I turned to try to rearrange the wires..they stuck him in the ass again.. and he bolted and jumped and his foot came down on the fence wire. That metal shoe DID NOT do him or me any justice. He started bucking and raising hell and he stepped on it 2 more times before I ever get him clear. Then he tore out like the devil was behind him. He just about lost his rider, but I was still hanging on. That horse was heading to the barn and wasn't anyone anywhere going to change his mind.  He jumped across a small ditch draw never even llooking..and on that one I lost my staples and part of my wire flags.
It scared the holy hell out of me..
Finally got him to calm down..and we took a long walk back the long way to ease us both down.

When I finally got back to the barn.. all the men were there having a good laugh.. telling me it was the finest free rodeo that they had seen in a while..
I laugh about it now.. but by golly then it wasn't so funny.. 

[litl rooster]

Marshall'ette...Sorry fer yer mis fortune....Pea Eye and I had same deal without the flags, the first summer I rode him.  He was broke then but Green. So was I when he quit hopping and jumpin'

[Delmonico]

Back in the days when cars had points and condensers under the distributor cap, a good way to break in a partsman who acted upity was to charge one with a spark plug wyre and walk to the parts department and tell him, "I need on of these" and toss it to him.

[Stealth]

One laughs after the fact and that is good. I just retired from 34 years of law enforcement and remember the time that I have to take a hit with the Tazer. My job required me to take a hit to be able to carry it. What an experience and I feel for you. Back in the days of tear gas we had to take a shot of that to be able to carry it but the funniest was when I was driving down the road in my crusier the canister leaked and I am sure watching me stop the exit the vehicle was quite a site.

[El Peludo]

Talkin' about peein' on the fence:  When I was in the Navy, I was stationed in Memphis for a few months, and visited with a family on a farm north of Memphis on the weekends.  Their yard dog was a mutt, sort of a Beagle, with longer than usual legs, and was black and white spotted - no matter.  One morning in early winter, might have been Thanksgiving, we decided that tracking rabbits would be easy, since it had snowed for a day or so, quite an unusual occurrence.  We set out along a road that the neighboring farmer had plowed, and the snow was piled up along his bull pasture fence, about two feet high.  Well, old dog was excited, and running back and forth, and ran up to a fence post, up on that piled up snow, and lifted his leg - right on the bottom hot wire of that fence.  Poor old thing took off running in circles, yelping and flopping around, and finally lined out for the house.  When we got back to the house, we found him under the porch looking like he'd been beaten; he wouldn't come out, so one of us went in and drug him out to see if he was really hurt: nope, but he never went hunting with anybody, again.  My friend told me, some years later, that that dog wouldn't get within five feet of any fence, after that.   

[Delmonico]

Run a wire from the coil, through the firewall, under the floor mat, and under the cloth seat cover, thats a positive thing.   The key turning the ignition, that's a negative thing.   The look on their face, priceless.  On English cars, 6 volt Chrysler products and Fords it is reversed.

[litl rooster]

Del, early electric fence chargers were made with 6 volt batteries a 6v coil and a couple capasitors from electronic outlets.

[Delmonico]

I knew that, my daddy told me it.   But if yer gonna pee on one, make sure it's one a dem "Weed Burners" like grandpa had.

[Steel Horse Bailey]

Howdy!

When I was in the Army I was assigned a new Private to help me on my Tank during Q (Quarterly) services.  This involves removing the engine (takes about 20 min. with an experienced crew) and removing the batteries and servicing them.  The M1A1 Tank has 6 large 12 Volt truck batteries hooked together in a series/parrallel setup that produces 24V and an excess of 1500 Amps.  I was giving Private Snuffy (Not his real name) the standard pre re-installation Safety talk: remove dogtags, watch, pens, or anything else that might short out the terminals.  We (I) was showing him how to do the last connection.  Did I mention that I FORGOT to tell him about removing rings?  Well, my wrench slipped and the wrench, new wedding ring, battery terminals, and I all made momentary contact.  Did you know that a 24V DC, 1500+ Amp setup will melt gold?!!! Yep.  I still have the wrench: it has a burned and melted spot that is gold plated:  what's left of the ring has a large chunk melted out, and luckily, my finger, which was burnt and cauterized to the bone has healed.  When all this happened, I flung the wrench (narrowly missing one of my crewmen) away from me - it felt REAL hot - and flipped my hand downward which caused molten gold to splatter on the back deck cover of the Tank, which is probably STILL there.

Needless to say, Private Snuffy was VERY impressed at my (un)Safety demonstration.  For some reason I STILL can't fathom  , he never really wanted to work much with me for a long while after that.

Like Old Top said, been there, done that, got the stoopid t-shirt.

PS - if you're wondering, the Tank suffered no ill effects except a small burnt spot on the 2 affected battery terminals.  They make 'em as near stoopid-proof as possible.

[Old Top]

Steel Horse,

Being an electrician I have learned that I can no longer take off my wedding ring so if I am working hot I use electical tape around it, have not melted mine but it does have an arc mark or two.  Old dogs do try to learn occasonily.  Trying to cut down on my stupid tee shirt collection.

Old Top