From Farting in Jars to Exploding Cigarettes
The Evolution and Decommissioning of a Hijinks Maker
I've done some silly things in my time. Reckless things. Thoughtless things. This though? This was some James Bond-level spy mischief. I've never considered myself much of a prankster. I always thought of myself more as a "seemed like a good idea at the time" kinda guy. When I was a kid I would perform many harmless... I hesitate to even call them pranks. Let's brainstorm some more fitting terms:
- Playful shenanigans
- Cheeky antics
- Harmless hijinks
- Whimsical mischief
- Good-natured trickery
Cool. Now we can move on. I'll go with "cheeky antics"—my inner spirit animal is "cheeky."
As I was saying, when I was a kid, I would constantly get up to cheeky antics. I used to be really great at making sound effects. I was able to mimic birds and crickets really well. I remember one time I had my parents walking around our house in confusion trying to locate a non-existent cricket. That antic only worked one time, but it was fun while it lasted. Then I had to wait until we had visitors or I went somewhere.
One "cheeky antic" from those days that I'll never forget was the time I trapped a smelly apparition. A bit of backstory. I guess I wasn't a dumb kid—yes, I did dumb things, well, seemingly dumb things because I learn much better by doing. I would come up with some theory about how something should work and then I'd set out to test my hypothesis. It's possible for this particular example I am using this as an excuse.
Okay, I'm sure most of you have seen one of these before:
This is an airtight jar. The one in my story wasn't exactly like this. It didn't have the metal clamp—it just had a lid that you pressed down. The seal was still supposed to be airtight. Was it really airtight though? How on earth would you even test something like this? You can't exactly see air, and I don't have anything that would make the air inside the jar visible. What other senses do we have?
Sight—outHearing—not going to hear air leaking outTouch—what am I supposed to be touching, exactly?Smell—hmm, we might be onto something here
Many elements in this world exhibit smells that affect our olfactory organ. Sweet smells, sour smells, rancid smells, smells that trigger memories, and smells that trigger gag reflexes. On this particular day, just the right number of moons were in alignment. Parents weren't home, I had access to an empty airtight jar, and the gas that had been extruding from my personal rear exhaust was rather pungent. The lab equipment was all present and accounted for. Now all that was left were the practicalities of the experiment itself.
How would I be able to successfully transfer the putrid, potentially noxious gas that was gurgling around in my intestines into this airtight jar with minimal leakage?
It would take a balance of speed and agility.
I hatched a plan.
I carefully positioned the jar on the floor (if you start involuntarily cringing at this, I know you've seen some things online you'd rather forget).
I removed my shorts and jocks. I didn't want any of the gas being unnecessarily filtered through the synthetic and cotton material. No, it had to be raw, unadulterated. I felt the brew coming to a head.
It was time.
I cracked open the lid just enough, and I opened it on an angle so that I could snap it shut once the deed was done.
PFFFFT
Like the trench run in A New Hope, this was a picture-perfect execution.
Seemingly every last pungent molecule made its way ever-so-gracefully into this airtight container.
Snap.
As if possessed by the ghost of every wild west gunslinger, I snapped the lid closed.
It was done.
I pulled my jocks up, followed by my shorts, then proceeded to carefully pick up the jar from the floor. It was like lifting up a bomb with a hair trigger. Even though I knew the terrible evil was trapped safely inside the container, a voice in the back of my mind was telling me to heed caution, be wary—for once you manage to contain evil such as this, you never know what might happen.
Beyond this moment, I had no plan, no hypothesis. After a time, I forgot about the jar of evil deeds. For some reason, this jar sat empty for the longest time on the countertop. It was like an imposter among all the other various jars and containers. Coffee, tea, sweets, then this lone empty jar juxtaposed smack bang in the middle. Like I said, I forgot all about this airtight jar of potential energy. This transparent holder of doomsday air.
Life went on as normal as the world around was blissfully unaware of this harbinger of poo particles, this nose-hair-melting invisible mini atmosphere of rigor fartis.
Until one fateful day.
I don't know exactly why, but every time I imagine someone reacting in an over-the-top way to the smell of one of my farts, I have such a visceral reaction—I get the giggles. So if you ever see me start laughing from seemingly nothing, this is probably what I'm thinking about.
Anyway, back to the fateful day in question. I don't remember why my mother suddenly had the urge to use this particular jar. It could have been some demonic force developing within the jar, beckoning her to open it so this demon could use its newfound vessel to locate a skunk or a stink bug (we don't have skunks in Australia) to take over. Or to simply expand our sweets collection—both are clearly equally plausible, obviously. Whatever the reason, it happened, like something out of an Indiana Jones movie, obviously the older ones, where the seal was broken, the cursed air rushing to freedom faster than a "Swifty coming to the defense of Taylor Swift criticism."
Her reaction was a thing of beauty. It was magnificent. I wish I could have captured her reaction within that same jar—the world would never have to worry about its energy supplies ever again. Her reaction had everything a connoisseur of fart reactions could dream of—the subtle head shake, the utter disbelief, the double-take, the second sniff, because the disbelief and utter shock of the first sniff reset her memory—like a cat peering into a bucket full of crabs. Then came the pièce de résistance. The speed and velocity of a physics major's descent into madness, coupled with the, "Jesus, what in God's name is that? We can't keep that, we gotta chuck it." Without a moment's hesitation, it was clear the jar was unsavory, I mean unsavable, irredeemable, unsalvageable.
I was in tears. I couldn't speak.
My not-yet-fully-formed brain was screaming at my mouth to take credit for this magnificent monstrosity. But there was no one home, just our old mate laughter having a house party in my noggin.
I honestly can't remember what happened after this. I'm sure I fessed up—how could I not? My mother was surely used to things like this by that time.
Now we have that little prelude out of the way, on with the main event.
After I moved out of home, I lived in various places. I lived with our neighbors for a time and eventually moved in with friends of friends. At that time I wasn't gainfully employed—I remember because I was smoking roll-your-own cigarettes, not those fancy pre-made ones. On this particular day, I must have got paid or I was just feeling fancy because I had a full pack of 25 pre-made ciggies. We're getting a bit ahead of ourselves—we should back up a touch.
Post-fart-jar, I went through a period of fascination with things that went whoof and things that went bang. I graduated past the cliché magnifying glass plus sun burning things phase (leaves, etc., not ants so much) and began experimenting with aerosols and other liquids and chemicals and elements.
Pro tip for anyone wanting to learn from others' mistakes—be very careful, or better yet, just straight up avoid mixing methylated spirits and fire. Once it ignites, the flame is virtually invisible—this means that things get hot and burny ow-ow and you can't see what you're supposed to be putting out until other things start burning. And don't light the flame close to the open bottle—it combusts so quickly. I'm glad I did it in a "controlled" environment. I never burned anything big or set fire to other people's stuff—I'm not a pyro—I was simply curious.
One of the cooler things I discovered was that hearing aid, or button cell batteries, explode when exposed to heat. It's not a large, fiery explosion, just a small pop1. Okay, for the safety of any idiots, do not try this at home—it's not a tiny little pop, and you're likely to hurt yourself or others. And for the love of God, never ever try this with lithium batteries.
Below is a table going over the differences in the risks, when exposed to heat between Alkaline and Lithium button cell batteries:
The bang from these going off is likely louder than I remember. The first time I tried it, I did it inside a toy car that I had. It was a dark blue van—all the doors opened, including the back. There were two back doors that swung open. I put the van on a patch of dirt in our front yard, of which there were many. I opened the back doors and placed my "ignition source" in the back of the van and then a small button cell battery on top. I then lit the ignition source, stood back, and waited. Sure enough, 10 to 20 seconds later, there was a loud pop, and it was over. The damage was fairly minimal.
Once (and you can decide if this goes against my earlier point when I said I didn't set fire to anyone else's stuff because it's still technically true), well twice technically, I set off these batteries in school—popped the little suckers in two separate empty garbage bins. Nothing caught fire, there were just two loud pops, and that was it. No one was harmed in the making of this story. Again, I feel the need to stress, don't try this at home or elsewhere—these days you're likely to get arrested for making an improvised explosive device or something. Maybe things are relaxed where you live, but I feel I need this disclaimer as I don't condone it!
Back to our regularly scheduled program of continuing the main part of the story where we left off.
Now—where was it we left off again? Hang on while I flip the virtual pages and check.
Ah yes, the ciggies. I think they were Marlboro, or Benson & Hedges. I don't know what drew me to smoking—looking back, it seems like one of the most useless habits—it kills you faster slowly, and what real benefit does it have?
Some people reckon it's good for relieving stress. Bull. Swap your cigarette for a straw, and you'll probably get the same benefit—or, you know, learn some breathing exercises.
"It's a social activity."
Great, more scenarios in which I put my foot in my mouth, but this time I have a cigarette in there as well. Fantastic.
"You'll lose weight!"
Awesome, I personally lost 20kg by, wait for it, eating less. It was like magic, and I didn't need to mitigate the health benefits of losing weight with smoking.
"Gain concentration!"
Nope, sorry, another myth—unless the effect was so unbelievably quick I missed it. Seeing as though I have pretty big issues with concentration, I'm fairly sure I would have noticed.
"It's habit, dude!"
Yeah, a bad one. This section is probably coming across pretty judgmental. Okay, great, now what? I suppose you'll want me to apologise? I'm sorry you're an idiot. Happy?
My parents both smoked at different points in their lives, so that may have contributed a little bit to me taking up the habit for a while. As a kid, I was pretty good at rolling, I'll say that much.
After this particular "prank," I didn't really do that much more. Either I did and I don't really remember, or I just slowed down a lot. It wasn't because this was all that traumatising or anything like that—I guess for whatever reason it became a bit of a turning point. I feel like I'm rambling.
One of my best friends got me in the habit of having a lucky cigarette. This, for those who don't know, is when you turn one of the cigarettes in the pack around, so the filtered end is facing inward instead of outward. The idea is that you always smoke that one last.
The house where I was living was two stories, with an outside staircase that went up to the right leading to a small balcony. We used to smoke on the balcony or out in the yard. The first floor was fairly open, split in two, with the left-hand side (if you're facing the house) having a few bedrooms—in reality, there were beds and crudely divided spaces. On the other half of the first floor was a garage that was never used as a garage. Instead, it was an entertainment area. It had a table and some chairs, as well as an old TV, which I had a PlayStation 2 hooked up to. We would occasionally smoke in the first floor areas, and by occasionally, I, of course, mean all the damn time.
Where I slept around this time was in the right-hand corner as you enter through the sliding glass door—as soon as you walk in, you look to the right, and there's my bed, running longways along the right-hand wall. I barely had any stuff, so it suited me. I was just happy to have a roof over my head and food to eat.
I don't remember exactly what we were doing on this particular night. I'm sure we were drinking or getting ready to drink.
From memory, there was a group of us there, the people who lived there, as well as some others, friends, etc. Where the inspiration for the prank spawned from, I couldn't tell you. That's like asking a tree why it moves in the wind—it doesn't even know it's happening, let alone why. Ideas and inspiration flit in and out of my brain like virtual particles going in and out of real particles.
I felt like MacGyver.
An evil, prankster MacGyver.
Why did we even have party poppers laying around?
Seems like a weird thing to be stocked up on.
I grabbed my pack of cigarettes and got to work—I didn't have much time. The others would soon grow suspicious of where I was and what I was up to. I avoided touching my lucky cigarette like the plague—the last thing I needed right now was bad luck.
I picked the furthest cigarette from my lucky one and pulled it out of the pack. The smell of the unburned tobacco wafted up to greet my nose with excitement, tempting me to spark up one of the other cigarettes. I told myself now's not the time to be thinking about smoking—we've got work to do.
I put that cigarette to the side for now and grabbed the party popper. For the uninitiated, this is what I'm talking about:
I pried out the first of two round cardboard inserts, revealing a glorious assortment of tiny rolled-up colored paper—fancier folk than I may call it confetti. Tucking the cardboard piece and the confetti out of sight, I delicately extracted the second circular cardboard layer. This cardboard layer should ideally be thicker than the outer layer as it's the "propulsion" layer. It has to push out not only the various colored rolled-up confetti paper but also the staging cardboard with enough force to successfully deploy all the confetti paper into the stratosphere of your living room or whichever room you happen to be in at the time.
After the successful extraction of the propulsion cardboard came the most difficult and dangerous part—the removal of the trigger mechanism. My forehead was sweaty, arms confetti. Time was running out fast. I began hearing the occasional lull in conversation, and each lull was getting longer. It was only a matter of time before I heard the inevitable, "What's Braeden up to? Is he in his room?"
I had to be careful and precise, yet quick. Damn it, why'd I agree to take on this mission?! The steaks were high, they were cooking upstairs, but the stakes were higher—if I didn't pull this off, maybe no one would laugh at my jokes ever again and I would no longer be recognised as the current room's greatest prankster.
The pressure was starting to get to me—I had to focus.
There are two main reasons the procedure for removing a party popper's trigger mechanism is so tricky. Firstly, where the trigger mechanism resides, the launch chamber, is not very wide. This means that it's narrow.
There's not much room to work. Secondly, the hole from which the trigger mechanism's string protrudes is tight—this also means that it's narrow. Because my time was severely constrained, I had to use just enough force to extract the trigger mechanism in one piece without engaging the string and detonating it.
It was in this moment I began praying to my lucky cigarette for the strength, determination, and perseverance for a successful extraction. There would be no chance at a second attempt.
The lulls were growing longer.
Did I just hear someone mention the weather?! I pictured the clock on a ticking timebomb counting down, which surprisingly didn't help much.
I'm glad I always carried my Swiss Army knife with me. I never left home without it. Unless I was going to the airport. Or when I went to concerts. Or parties. Or work—I didn't take it into work with me. Or if I was roaming around in the middle of the night. I mostly used it at home, come to think of it. On this particular day, I had it on me, and it came in handy.
The pliers, I need the pliers. I opened out the pliers. When you open up one of the tools on these pocket knives, there's this satisfying thunk when the tool opens fully, that's just so satisfying. I said it just above. What, you think I'm a thesaurus or something?
I shakily and sweatily gripped the pliers in my right hand and the multistage party popper in the other—that would be my left at the time. Taking a few deep breaths, I dove pliers first, gingerly into the abyss. It was increasingly more difficult to keep my hands steady. The lack of conversation in the next room became infinitely more distracting. The excruciating silence, and my tinnitus, were now a deafening roar. That and there was a jumbo jet passing by overhead. After it passed, the silence was still pretty loud, much louder than the dying conversations and awkward, silence-filling coughs that left an echo that lasted longer than the drop of sweat that refused to jump off my forehead. Holding on for dear life like those plastic hanging monkeys from the game with the barrels that no one probably remembers.
I successfully gripped the trigger mechanism.
Easy does it.
Don't squeeze too tight.
Don't pull too hard (that's what she said).
In my professional experience, the best technique is to carefully twist the trigger mechanism in the same direction as the "grain" of the string. This allows the string to become thinner. There is a more advanced technique where you cut the "cap" off the end of the launch chamber. This technique lets you extract the trigger mechanism directly. But as the narrator has bludgeoned you over the head with—there simply was no time for such shenanigans, or even tomfoolery—not even one iota of malarkey.
Twist, pull. Twist, pull. The methodical dance of a mischief maker.
There was an abrupt silence. Not like before, this one was different.
Someone's coming.
My cover was blown, my ruse unfurled, my sweater undone.
I started scrambling as fast as I could. I was so close, yet so far. This couldn't be the end! Surely this was just foreshadowing!
As the last pink strip of confetti disappeared underneath my pillow, the lone wanderer came sauntering in. Like they hadn't a care in the world, like they were clueless about the stressful chaos that was unfolding milliseconds prior. How the hell could they be so relaxed at a time like this? I couldn't believe how embarrassingly cavalier they were behaving—it was sickening!
"Yo."
"Frank, what's up? You're a sneaky bugger today."
"Nothin', we were wondering where you got to."
"Nothin' much. I mean, I was just here."
"I see that. What's that under your pillow?"
Damn it, leave it to trigonometry to rat me out. Angles, never there when you need them. I went to great lengths to hide what I was up to, but the angles, always the angles. Luckily, Frank was my confidant, my bro, my partner in crime. I'm exaggerating slightly—I just mean he wouldn't dob me in. He was no trigon.
"I was setting this up for Melissa."
I lifted up my pillow and exposed all the paraphernalia. Cigarettes, pulled apart party popper, pocket knife, matches, dead mouse—not sure what that was doing there. I lowered the pillow again.
"Oh shit, is that safe?"
"Yeah, don't worry about it. It's dead—I'll get rid of it later."
"No, I mean the party popper."
"It's just a little pop, don't stress. Can you keep the others busy for say another five minutes? There's still plenty of drinks in the fridge, and John should be done with those steaks soon."
"Sure."
"Thanks!"
The pressure was well and truly on now, it's possible we'd start having random wanderers, curious cats, sticky beaks, any and all manner of busybodies.
The trigger mechanism kinda looks like a tampon when it's out of the party popper.
Snip
Won't be needing the string. It'll be safely tucked away inside a cigarette.
I then grabbed our pre-put-away-to-the-side-for-later cigarette and a match. With the non-sparky end of the match I proceeded to dig out enough tobacco for the, now tailless, trigger mechanism to sit comfortably.
Careful not to crumple or tear the outer paper of the cigarette, it can't look suspicious. Also have to be careful not to force the trigger mechanism in too tightly as the cigarette might bulge and look weird.
Once the trigger mechanism is all the way in I start packing tobacco back in, ensuring the trigger mechanism was far enough in so I could pack tobacco at the end as well, and so it doesn’t detonate instantly.
The time was nigh.
Using a level of delicateness dedicated to the daintiest of dainty, I slipped the cigarette into the packet, with the other cigarettes none the wiser there was an imposter among them. I left it poking out, just a touch.
The packet was primed and ready.
In the nick of time as well, as the others came pouring into my bedroom area like the drinks that were now beginning to course through their veins.
“Are you done doing whatever it is you were doing yet?
“We’re gonna have a smoke!”
“We wanna have a durry!”
“Dying for a ciggy, come on, man!”
“Yeah, yeah, alright—Melissa, here you go, just don’t take my lucky.”
As she reached for the cigarette my heart began to palpitate like the idle of a Harley Davidson. I realised I’d been holding my breath this whole time. I drew in a lot of breath, with my brain zeroing back in on reality once more.
Sparks from the cigarette lighter syphoned away the darkness from everyone’s faces, the light engulfing them like a Mexican wave of photons, seemingly in slow motion.
The second thumb roll combusted the gas, then in turn, the cigarette, the now luminescent end of the cigarette ever-so-slowly turning to smoke and ash.
Shouldn’t it have popped by now?
Was it a du…
BANG
Chaos erupted for about twice as long as the ‘explosion’ itself, a few unextinguished embers sneakily sauntering onto my bed, burning holes in my bed sheets, small pieces of paper and remnants of cigarette floating down without a care in the world, imitating the waving of a orchestral conductor during a peaceful transition.
Everyone’s gaze moved toward me like playful cats hunting a laser pointer.
After a few playful smacks and the odd name-calling, things went back to normal pretty quickly, we cleaned up a bit, made sure there were no hidden embers itching for a surprise fire department house call, and continued the night just like any other.
fin
Hope you enjoyed this first real attempt at jazzifying my writing a bit!
If you did, or even if you didn’t, you know the appropriate actions to take and the right buttons to press.
If you made it this far, I mean of course you did, right? Then you’ll be the first to know that I actually made a video to accompany this article. The editing is taking a lot longer than I thought it would so it will be a separate post—make sure you subscribe and you’ll be the first to see my totally-true-to-life-really-I’m-not-exaggerating-not-even-a-tiny-bit-okay-maybe-that’s-stretching-the-truth-a-little recreation.
That's it for now,
As always, good luck, stay safe and be well.
See ya!
Small in this context is probably not small as most people would understand.