Now think about it for a moment. Something like sticking you tongue
to frozen metal - what compelling reason would you have to put your tongue on any metal regardless? Let alone at -20? How about the battery on the tongue trick... 9 volt... Yep, gives one hell of a snap doesn't it.Oh I've got one. Electric fence. It gives you one heck of a lift. Touch something that will ground you and let me tell you from experience, it will drop you to your knees. We know what jolt an electric fencer will give off, yet guys especially feel that they need to prove something by reaching out and holding on.
Ahhh, and there is the totally brain dead, finger in the electrical outlet - I kid you not, it's been done. Just to see what happens.
Well, I committed my own act of 'just what were you thinking' this week. I paid for it today. Earlier in the week, my wiper juice was running low. Now, I have two stashes of the stuff, one in the tool shed and one in the barn.
I know the stash in the tool shed is rated for -45, but it's in the tool shed, there's no light, it's out of the way and I'm not exactly sure where the box is. On the other hand, the stash in the barn is right where I put it back in the fall. I also know that my barn stash is summer windshield fluid. I know this because way back at the beginning of winter when we had our last cold snap, I had some in my reservoir. I know it is for the summer because it crystallized in my truck, making sure I couldn't clean my windshield until it got mild again. Which by the way was later that day.
So, I run out of bug juice. Being lazy, being stupid and being just plain out to lunch.... I make the trip to the barn, retrieve the summer juice and put it in. Now hubby warns me... 'are you sure this stuff won't freeze'? 'Nah' I say, 'it won't freeze, it's okay'. I'm not sure who I thought I was fooling.... of course it is going to freeze when the temps drop. Perhaps it was just wishful. Perhaps I was in denial that the cold snap would never hit. Regardless - I was wrong.
It was -20ish last night (Celsius baby). Cold as it gets. This morning, I don't around -19c when I went to hop in the truck. I drive for about 10 minutes and then realize that my squirter is not functioning. I pull over and proceed to 'bang' the ice away from the little squirter things. I get back into the truck and poof. Nope. No juice. Back out I get, open the hood and flip the top of the reservoir.... yep, frozen. Not crystallized like before.... frozen.
Shit.
I head on into the city, trying to peek around the white smudges that cover my windshield. I pop into Canadian Tire, which btw is out of my way. I drop them eight bucks for a bottle of 'booster' and a jug of Teflon good to -45 wiper juice. Out I go. In the frigate temps, pop the hood and add the booster. Get back into the truck and try the juicer..... presto... one side is working, unfortunately not my side.
I drive onward to my meeting. Still with one side functioning. Apparently the lines to the other squirter are frozen.
I leave the meeting and by now, everything is back to being frozen... so much for booster. I head back towards home base and it takes 30 minutes of driving before the t
ruck even thinks about warming up. Man, it's cold!Finally, one stop and over an hour of running later, the windshield washer functionis back to working. I frantically keep it working and manage to empty all of the 'bad' fluid in preparation to add my new expensive 'Teflon' fluid. Which I do, but not until I pull up the driveway at home.
Now all of this stupidity could have been avoided. I knew that the fluid would freeze. I knew that it would cause me grief. I knew that I should walk the extra 10 steps to the tool shed. What do I do though..... take the easy way out, which in the end turns out to be a colossal pain in the butt!
Now come on. You've all done something like this... time to fess up. Did I ever tell you about the poor birch tree that my friend Tyler had cut down. The same tree that the client committed to saving. 'This is my favorite tree, it has memories, do what needs to be done to save it!'. Yeah, he knew better..... still he cut it down. Dumb ass!
Have a Hot Cherry Day and please, share with us.
