Many important and life-altering discoveries have been made by accident. Think of Penicillin, Velcro and Post-It Notes, to name a few. Today I accidentally discovered how to kill or maim a person using 2 ordinary household items: a plastic 1-quart bottle of half-n-half and a single car key.
Many important and life-altering discoveries have been made by accident. Think of Penicillin, Velcro and Post-It Notes, to name a few. Today I accidentally discovered how to kill or maim a person using 2 ordinary household items: a plastic 1-quart bottle of half-n-half and a single car key.
The funny thing is that, last night, we had some people over for a Bible study and our conversation naturally strayed to the question of how many of us have actually ever wanted to murder our spouses. From there, it degenerated to how God would simply have to affect an accident because, well, for one thing we're Christians and murder is not an option and, besides, what good is a dead spouse if you’re not going to have some AD&D insurance money with which to retire?
As I reflect now, I think that, should the mishap this morning have actually led to my pleading before a judge and jury of my peers, my good Christian friends would be obligated to testify truthfully, “Yes, Your Honor, Cindy is the one who started the conversation about murdering her husband.”
And that would surely cast a shadow of doubt on my only defense which would be, “Oops, my bad.”
This morning I got up and made coffee, as usual. When the coffee finished brewing, I got the bottle of half-n-half out of the refrigerator and placed it on the island – again, as usual. Also on the island was a car-key, left by our friend last night (Oh! I hadn’t even considered the implications that could be made of the fact that the key was left by our <i>male</i> friend, whose wife is going out of town for 10 days…the very <i>key</i> that was used as the projectile responsible for my dear husband’s demise….)
But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
So, Chuck comes out of the bedroom and sits down at the breakfast table. As we’re discussing the logistics of the day before us, I lift the creamer bottle – now slick with condensation from sitting out on the counter. It slips from my loose grip and lands against the curvaceous edge of the key fob at exactly the angle necessary to launch it into a 200 mph ballistic trajectory aimed directly at Chuck’s unsuspecting head.
The car-key-micro-spear narrowly misses Chuck’s eye, striking the chair behind him, then proceeds in a perpendicular what-are-the-odds-of-that ricochet, striking a second kitchen chair before finding it’s place of rest on the floor next to the table - all of this happening in what seems a nanosecond and with such uncanny accuracy as to make the most ridiculous JFK conspiracy theory appear plausible.
“What was that?” Chuck exclaims.
“Holy Cow! It was the key!”
“The key? I heard it tear past my head!”
“Yeah! Did you note the ricochet?
“I’m wearing safety glasses to dinner.”
Actors have been used in this photographic reinactment