Wendy/Darwin says, "Accepted into the Archive. Also see Caps'n'Hammer Kid...!"

I was about 9 years old and lived in Pennsylvania. Fireworks were illegal but you could get rolls of caps. I had a friend show me how to make a firecracker out of the caps. You would get a pin (like you find in new shirts) and load the caps on it by pushing the pin through the center of each powder loaded center and fold the cap over accordion style. You would fill the pin up about half full then pull them off keeping them as tight together as you could. Then wrap it in a Kleenex and twist one end to make a wick. Light the wick and pretty quickly you would have a nice little bang from the homemade firecracker.

As kids we all know that bigger is better.

I remembered seeing a large hat pin in my Moms sewing box. I figured instead of using a small pin I would use a large hat pin and make a large firecracker. I started loading that pin up with a roll of caps. There is no telling how long I worked on loading that pin up. I probably had almost 2” of caps stacked up on it. So now I’m ready to pull the caps off the pin and wrap it in a Kleenex. I started to pull but it wasn’t sliding off the pin. I tried some more but still no luck. The head of the pin didn’t give me much to hold on to so I put the head of the pin in my mouth and gave it a big tug.

That stack of caps went off with the sound of a shotgun shell. My folks and brothers ran into the room to see what was going on and I’m standing there with black all over my face. My ears were ringing and my lips were tingling from the explosion. I had to explain what I did to my folks and once they stopped laughing they checked to be sure all my parts were still intact.

Submitted on 10/15/2009

Submitted by: Ross Pavlik
Reference: No media reference, just a dumb kid trying to have fun - around 1967

Copyright © 2009 DarwinAwards.com

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
I was ready to toss this as being too common but given the imagery of how it all ended I think it's worth holding on to. Thanks for a good laugh, Ross!

Graham said:
Neutral: Personal Account
While quite common, i.e. firework mishaps, I did laugh at the mental image of this one. I'm guessing you never did it again, huh?

Candi said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Cartoony images are always fun. Thanks, Ross!

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