Feeling Good about Failure

The day started with a bang. A bang about the size of an M-150 firecracker smuggled across the Colorado-Wyoming border. So to be more specific, the day started with a largely insignificant and mostly unsatisfying bang. My buddy and I set out to change that.

An M-150 firecracker is a small cylinder with hardened light gray stuff and powdery dark gray stuff packed inside. A green fuse runs in from the top. I don’t know how much these things cost, I didn’t ask, but I do know that if a person runs a saw blade down the side of the cardboard cylinder, the different color stuffs can be segregated. The light gray stuff does not catch on fire, but if a person was to crush it up then add small amounts of water it can be reshaped, molded to fit the size of a small pill bottle spray painted black. The dark grey stuff is the moneymaker. It is packed in a smaller cylinder that encases the bottom of the green fuse. This is the sound and the fury.

We dissect seven firecrackers with wavering precision. Light gray matter spills onto the kitchen table, the kitchen floor, onto my jeans.
If my fiancée was here …

With Scotch tape, four inner cylinders are fastened together and a Dremel tool is used to drill a hole in the top of the pill bottle for the fuse. By definition, this is an Improvised Explosive Device.

I get the video camera

The fuse sparks up and we start to run for cover behind my car. Glorious yellow orange sparks illuminate a small section of the parking lot behind my apartment building. In my mind, I am adding this to my resume as an example of creativity, resourcefulness, self-motivation.

The fuse burns for less an half a second then fizzles out. No fireball, no explosion. We wait behind my car for three minutes before walking up and hesitantly kicking it over.

We try the fuse again but nothing happens. I unlock the dumpster and we throw it away.

Witness to only the realization of my ineptitude as a terrorist, and that is surprisingly more satisfying than the alternative.