I was in the office at work this evening turning my paperwork in when I heard a loud noise coming from somewhere down around the shop. It's probably a hunnert yards or more from the office to the shop, and it sounded kinda like a tail gate on a dump truck slamming. Randy ( dispatcher Randy, not THE Randy ) said "what was that"? I said "I don't know". We don't have dump trucks. Didn't see anything out the back door. Jeff and Todd were both gone already. So I strolled on outside and down the hill to the shop, stopped and got my check out of the shed, walked over to my high powered Kentworth truck for something, then I was walking over to go in the shop door at the rear of the shop while looking at my check and admiring it. Not paying too much attention to anything except the check at the time. Then I heard somebody yelling something...who's that?..oh, it was Naaman. He was in his truck backing a trailer into a hole. Couldn't hear what he was yelling. Then I saw him pointing at something and motioning for me to get away. Then I noticed a plastic windshield washer fluid bottle on the ground in front of me, with a trail of burning liquid going to it. "hmmmm" I thought. "That's sort of unusual, even for here". Then I turned and ran for cover behind the dumpster. I peeped around the corner right when the jug exploded with a tremendous boom, and the cap from the jug whizzed by my head...might have even grazed my noggin a little. When I went over Tom was standing just inside the shop holding a can of starting fluid and laughing like hell. Then I found out all the details of this great adventure and it sounded like such fun I thought of the "entertaining the kids" plan. Just give them an acetylene torch, a cigarette lighter, a can of ether- or you could give them a can of gasoline instead I suppose- and some empty plastic bottles. Smaller bottles, like water or pepsi bottles, are actually better than the gallon jugs- much louder. All they gotta do is hold the bottle upside down over the tip of the torch and turn the oxygen and acetylene on- don't light the torch, that could be dangerous! Then screw the top on the bottle tight. Don't forget to turn the torch off! Place the bottle in a clear spot- outside somewhere, or you could blow paint off the ceiling- then just spray ether ( or the gasoline) on it and around it and spray a small trail of ether ( or the gasoline) away from it for about 15 to 20 feets- whatever you feel safe with. Light the end of the trail and take cover! When the fire burns a pinhole in the bottle full of acetylene and oxygen there'll be a tremendous supplosion! Little bits of plastic everywhere...could keep them entertained for hours, or until the neighbors complain, or the cops show up. The last time plastic bottles were 'sploding around there it was just by drilling a hole in the top and screwing an air chuck into it. Connect the hose, turn the valve, boom! They could also hear that up at the office, and Todd said at the time he didn't want to hear another sound coming from down there that didn't involve work. As I said, he left early today so he didn't hear a thing. * DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!*...even though some of the events described here could perhaps be partially true, this is meant to be a humorous post and not to be taken seriouslly. You should never, ever, let children- or adults, for that matter- play with matches, lighters, gasoline, acetylene, torches, starting fluid, duct tape, empty bottles, ceilings, dumpsters, hoses, valves, paint cans, 55 gallon drums, cell phones, or oxygen, as all could be considered dangerous!