Out of Plumb

I was working on cleaning out the accumulated castoff from all the auctions we have worked this year, sorting out the junk. Oh hell, it was all junk. Anyway there was a pile of boxes in the corner of the living room each with one or two things at the bottom, stuff that we were not able to sell or otherwise use. In amongst this monument to American consumerism was a blood pressure cuff or a spazmocrapmographer as it was labeled. Well they might have spelled it slightly differently but I am close enough, especially since it didn’t work. That’s cool; I didn’t need my pressure anyway. Crap. In my wisdom, and even the most tepid of you have to see the brilliance of this, I decided to take it apart. Oh it was fun at first, you could blow into the tube and the fluid would rise up the vial. I was soon bored and began to wonder at all uses of a 12 inch long glass tube. I decided that I must have such an object, you know incase I ever do think up a use for a 12 inch long glass tube. Did you know the ‘fluid’ was mercury? I suppose I knew, but I just didn’t connect it. I was after all basking in the glow of my nifty glass tube. Well the next thing I know 2 table spoons of the stuff is pouring out on the floor. My first thought was that I need to level the dining room because let me tell you that quicksilver was moving well, quick. My next thought was that if my wife ever finds out I had a quart of mercury pooled in the corner of her living room she will make me burn down the house and move to another state. It is at this point in the story that I should relate that she is not home and I am still in my underwear. Watching a tighty-whitey clad guy with a stubby finger chase 2 ½ gallons of mercury around his living room floor at 3 in the afternoon would have been memorable for you, trust me. I got it, eventually. I guess the moral of the story is that if you ever are suffering from spazmocrapmographer tube envy fight it my friend, fight it.