Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Set Your Zappers to Kill

I'm back from what I've come to call my Autumn Limbo where I reside every September-November, until there is at least the slightest promise that the dark fall will turn into bright snowy winter, and Christmas is coming and the days will get longer again.

So, upon the audience's request (both of them), here's my first post in a long time. It's irrelevant, dumb, poorly written, has no informational value, so it's right at home here in the Broken Brain Blog!

Last summer, I was visiting a friend's summer house and discovered a pink device (no, it's not what you think...read on..) which looked quite like a racquetball raqcuet but in place of the string bed there was a shiny metal mesh. There was also an on-off switch on the handle. When I turned the thing on, it made a whining noise. I could think of only one purpose for such a device. They had finally invented the electronic fly-zapper.

It was payback time.

Within an hour I had zapped all the flies in the house and, I admit, a couple dozen in the garden. Hey, I had to get it out of my system. But the best was to come: Imagine the satisfaction of zapping to fiery death the fly that keeps waking you up by buzzing around your head in the morning.

A word of warning though: that thing packs a punch. I had to stick my finger in it, just to see what it was like. I figured, it's only got a couple of 1.5V batteries, how much harm can it do? I mean, you can check the charge on a 4.5V battery with your tongue, right? Well, I forgot some of your basic electronics. The thing is a capacitor. My finger still bears the mark of that painful burn. It was a spectacular way to ridicule myself in front of my friends, though.