[ale] Engineering Archaeology

[Bob Toxen]

Thrown out of McDonalds?

Once I was thrown out of a Consulate party in Atlanta.

Bob

On Mon, Jan 26, 2026 at 12:55:38AM -0500, Steve Litt via Ale wrote:
> Bob Toxen said on Sun, 25 Jan 2026 20:44:20 -0500
> 
> >The day before Halloween when I was 13, I was making smoke bombs for
> >Halloween.  I mixed up amonium nitrate and zink dust with iodine to
> >give it a rich purple color.
> >
> >I folded up a piece of paper into a small container, added some of the
> >mixture, taped it shut, and tossed it into a large bottle with the rest
> >of them.  I discovered that the mixture should be triggered with a
> >match. I had forgotten that my father demonstrated the feature by
> >dribbling a few drops of water onto the mixture.
> >
> >Well, after the bottle was filled with about 50 cubic inches of this,
> >to my shock and horror, it sucked enough moisture out of the air to
> >start the reaction, bursting into flame.  The smoke screen was so dense
> >that it would do James Bond proud.
> >
> >I opened all of the windows of the house to air it out and then went
> >outside with my brother to avoid choking on the smoke.
> >
> >I saw dense smoke coming out of all of the windows. I was lucky that
> >none of the neighbors saw as they surely would have called the fire
> >department.  But wait, there's more.  My town was too small to have its
> >own police department so they contracted with the state police for
> >this. (They were a really nasty bunch.)  They had made their annual
> >patrol of the neighborhood only an hour before.  Phew.  My parents
> >never found out.
> 
> I was an 18 typical teeny bopper ricer the summer of 1968, the proud
> owner of the South Side Special, a 59 Plymouth Savoy that burned a
> quart of oil every 50 miles. And like every stupid male, I used all
> sorts of "mechanic in a can" products, and made great show of opening
> the hood and taking off the air cleaner after parking.
> 
> One day I and my two buddies parked at MacDonalds in Glenview, so I
> opened up the hood, took off the air cleaner, and poured an entire 16
> ounce can of carburetor cleaner down the carb, when you're spozed to use
> only 3 ounces. We went inside, had our lunch, came back out, and after
> about three coughing tries, the engine barely started, coughing and
> spitting out voluminous smoke. I backed out, drove twice around the
> building, and turned right onto the street. My buddy started laughing
> his ass off, saying he couldn't see the golden arches. Looking in my
> rear view mirror confirmed it: The entire building, arches, and parking
> lot were enveloped in opaque gray smoke.
> 
> Three weeks later we went back to the same Macdonalds. The store
> manager saw me, grabbed me by the lapels, pulled me half way over the
> counter, told me to leave and said he never wanted to see me or my
> "f__kin Plymouth" ever again.
> 
> 86'ed from Macdonalds. How low can you go?
> 
> SteveT
> 
> Steve Litt 
> 
> http://444domains.com
> 
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