What you see in this photo is what I like to call, "The Death Paddle". It's a hand held bug zapper people. That's right. Now you can not only smoke little buzzing pests, you can pummel-roast them! Bob got two of these little beauties for his birthday.

As the nine of us, (4 impressionable children, 4 adults, and one idiot) sat around admiring the electric gnat bats, the question was asked..... "I wonder what that feels like?" It may have been the sign pasted directly on the racket that reads, "do not touch while red light is on", that prompted the query. I'm not sure. I can tell you that every man there suggested the other one .... put his finger in it. At one point, Jake picked it up, turned it on, and held his finger in front of it as the small children cried out..."DO IT, UNCLE JAKE! DO IT!" But try as he might, he could not knowingly electrocute his own finger.

After listening to the men taunt each other, watching one after another hold the thing and chicken out, I could take no more. "Oh, give it here, ya cowards!" I snatched it, flipped the electrocution switch and stuck my finger in. "Pah! It doesn't do anything, " I told them.

"You have to slip your finger through the protective wires," the men informed me, encouragingly.
"Wet your finger first!" Jake instructed.
I'm not stupid. No way was I gonna' wet my finger and stick it into what essentially is an electric socket of sorts. No sir. My digit was dry when I slipped her through the protective outer layer into the meat of the device.
The first thing I noticed as sparks flew wildly from the tip of my finger was intense searing pain, followed by the smell of burning flesh. Then suddenly...one of the little kids cried....GRANDMA YOUR FINGER IS SMOKING! I literally had to race to the kitchen and turn on the faucet to put my finger fire out. (btw....somebody had left the tap on hot)

As the entire room guffawed hysterically at my discomfort Jake looked at me with grudging admiration and said, "I can't believe you did that. That's the kind of stuff those guys on Jackass do. You could be on Jackass! Ok. Now stick your tongue in."

Go here to vote Crabby to a win in her final competition for best blog. It's now or never folks because I won't be running again.

I can't get to the blog interview site. When I try I get the following message. "It doesn't look like you've installed WP yet. Try running install.php."
Mails to Mike bounce back to me and yet I get his updates on "new" blog interviews just fine. Several people have told me they can get to the site and vote for anyone but me or Sign. Others have gotten through. I don't know what the deal is but it's obviously hurting any chance I had in this thing. Frankly considering this is the second time that site has cost me votes, I'm becoming more than a little annoyed.

Labels: electrocution, finger, fire, jackass, smoking