I do my best not to emperil others while driving, but damn it, these people were making it awfully hard.
First: WHO GAVE YOU JERKS PERMISSION TO REARRANGE THE DAMN WORLD? I'm cruising south on Route 1 and all of a sudden there's a freakin' turn where there never was one before! I don't recall giving anyone permission to install a turn in a formerly straight road!
...about a mile north of Goodenow Corners they radically altered the way Route 1 connects with Illinois 394, and I was all, "WTF? WTF!" It felt strange to see the landscape change in real life. "Hey! Who fucked up the world?" I demanded.
Second: going west on Pauling road. Some dumb woman was walking on the asphalt in a 50 MPH zone. WTF she can't get enough exercise on the local streets of Goodenow? She's got to go out on the highway?
At least she was walking on (to her) the left side, as she should have been. Also, fortunately for me there was no oncoming traffic, so I was able to swing wide of her.
Third: arriving at Sailor V's place this suicidal goddamned dog started chasing my car and actually tried to run in front of me. If I'd been a tenth of a second slower on the brakes that would have been an ex-dog. Stupid mutt.
Fourth: bike asshole! Some fucking retard on a high-dollar road bike was riding down Pauling road as if he were training for Tour de France. Git! There are plenty of humungously long bike paths around here you could do your training on. That shithead, I had to slow down for, because the encounter took place on a curve, and there was oncoming traffic to boot.
Damn it those bike assholes piss me off.
Finally, though, after two hours and 60 miles, I have accomplished my task, and the arsenal of fun has been expanded. Now I have only to wait a paltry 6 days to watch it all go up in smoke....
* * *
Tardily I realized that I should have demonstrated the properties of fuel-air explosives to my nephews: I have that potato cannon.
When I built the thing, I tested it in my front yard by stuffing a wadded-up paper towel in the barrel--to contain the fuel in the reaction chamber and simulate a projectile--and then loaded up the reaction chamber and test-fired it. The thing emitted a satisfying thwack and the paper towel came out of the barrel fast enough to go a couple feet before unraveling and falling softly to the ground.
I could have done the same thing to demonstrate it to my nephews. "Two seconds of hair spray into this confined space, and then a spark will make it explode. Cool, eh?"
Thinking about the Times Square islamic terror bombing attempt, I had forgotten this rather simple and reliable fuel-air explosive device which anyone can build for a few bucks and about half an hour's worth of work.
In fact, I went to a subdivision which was under construction and salvaged the tubing for barrel and reaction chamber from dumpsters, so all I had to buy was the transition and the end cap. (Those are, unfortunately, the most expensive parts. But I didn't have to buy the tubing!) And a used-up long-reach lighter provides the spark to ignite the propellant. (Protip is to use a grill ignitor, but they're not cheap and the lighter was free. Heh.)
The last thing I want to do in town is to fire the thing with an actual projectile. I don't know the exact range of the thing but it could send a spud 100 yards easy--and that's more than far enough to break a window or hit someone on the head, so it's a no-go in town.
Firing a potato into a corn field, though, no one will really care about. Except maybe the potato itself.