This is a test of embedding pdf stories, but for this example, we will also paste in the text below the pdf embed. This post represents the first in a new category of stories, “Dumb Things I Have Done.”
Category: Dumb Things I have Done
Issue: The Human Centrifuge
When we were kids the parents, like most, would engage various so-called “baby siƩers” to monitor and likely rule us back from some brink. One such siƩer was Mrs. Eddy.
Mrs. Eddy to say the least was a rather large woman. Ok, let’s go with morbidly obese? The kind of older female where there was sufficient flab and skin hanging from her arms to make a 15 year old well…gag. To be fair she did the job and was not an unpleasant person and my point here is not to fat shame her. But… that weight did have a significant impact on a piece of furniture and this story.
The furniture. In our Marshall Michigan home, in the family room, there were two high back rocking chairs. These were not the type with rails that you might see on the porch of an older reƟred person. Instead, they were aƩached to a base that had five stable arms, that rotated 360 degrees on bearings and had heavy springs that allowed for that forward and back rocking chair moƟon.
The demise of the chair. To be honest I don’t recall if in fact WE broke it spinning it around, but my recollecƟon and the family lore has it that Mrs. Eddy in her corpulent glory busted it. Whomever killed the chair doesn’t maƩer, though I like to think SHE did it. The piece was toast, but that steel swinging and rocking base… it was fine.
The Centrifuge. Probably my idea, but with teenagers who really knows. We took that base and bolted it to a piece of half inch plywood (expensive stuff now, but just around then), bored a hole in one corner and, since I had for some reason an extra pair of automoƟve seat belts lying around bolted them onto the board as well. To that hole a length of narrow rope was aƩached and was the accelerator. Hence the Human Centrifuge was created.
[diagram] The operaƟon of this device was simple. A vicƟm er… person, would lie upon the board which was all of maybe six inches above the ground, the seat belts strapped him in, so to speak, and the spin would begin.
RotaƟon would start manually and the speed of the device was greatly increased by tugging that accelerator line at the correct moment to boost the spin. This is the same as pushing the top of a spinning wheel to make it go faster.
To the vicƟm er… person the view from six inches flying around in circles was fairly remarkable, oŌen being a blur when up to speed. Another feature, at least for those not tethered to this device, was watching as most of their blood quickly migrated to head and foot leaving a nice white middle secƟon. Well that IS the function of a centrifuge, but we hadn’t anƟcipated the color changes. Whatever.
It may be to our credit, but I doubt it, that we terminated the use of our new, but kinda dangerous toy thanks to our neighbor Patrick Brown, aka our last vicƟm. Pat lived two doors down and oŌen would hang with us. Pat was a nice kid and, lets just say, gullible? He consented, obviously NOT informed consent, to try a ride.
Who knows what Pat had eaten prior to his inaugural and final ride, but when we got him up to speed (and we were a tad enthusiastic about it) it all came out in a disgusƟng 200 degree arc. The fact that we stood within that arc meant that shins and ankles caught an unfortunate amount of that splaƩer. Yeah, gross. Needless to say, post clean up there was absolutely no debate on the immediate reƟrement of The Human Centrifuge. No permanent damage was done and our liƩle dog – who stood only a few inches higher than the board, but was not within the arc of hurl, had the best Ɵme of all watching and barking as Pat slowed to a stop and stumbled off somewhere.