Meet Beanie Baby:
Beanie Baby was unhappy with the drudgery of life as a "child's play thing". Secretly he hoped to one day travel to far places and let his spirit fly free and unrestrained. Beanie Baby (like many of the Belt family) was a wanna-be adrenaline junkie. Sometimes Jakey would throw him from the trampoline or down the stairs but this only served to wet his appetite for real bone crushing adventure. One day Beanie Baby was sitting idly by in the overgrown prairie grass in the back yard when a moment of opportunity presented itself. The entire 20 lb. bag of potatoes had been shot one by one into the air or exploded against nearby trees and no more vegetarian projectiles could be found. Beanie Baby was selected as our next champion. . .
Safetey equipment was custom fabricated by an exceedingly skilled craftsman from the most high tech materials available to ensure safe travels for our little ginger bread man. Note the safety helmet, high tensile strength rip cord and ultra light polymer based parachute material.
Beanie Baby was understandably nervous but brave as he was loaded into the cannon head first in preparation for his first lauch sequence.
I hope Beanie Baby doesn't have claustrophobia like the launch technician doing the loading. It is a tight fit in there, especially once the ramrod is inserted to assure ideal positioning in the breech of the cannon chamber.
5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . BLAST OFF!
OHHH YAAA, LOOK AT THOSE GUNS!!!!
The first launch brought screams of anguish, grief and worry for Beanie Baby's welfare from his legal and emotional guardians (Jake and Kenzie) but was nonetheless a great success with a soft touch down.
Beanie Baby's duct tape helmet proved ineffective as it was nowhere to be found after take off. Our hero did suffer some minor head injury and burns but his enthusiasm for upcoming launches was greatly amplified by the over-all success of his initial launch.
The most vocal of detractors (Kenzie) began to show interest in being included in the next launch sequence since little or no harm had or presumably would come to our little astronaut given all the saftey equipment and precautions taken by the launch technician.
Beanie Baby did say later that the loading protocol did tickle a bit.
Much to the dismay of the launch team, equipment failures plagued subsequent launch sequences such as the parachute failure captured in the graphic images below. We watched in horror as Beanie Baby, a willing volunteer for our simple amusement, plummeted toward the earth at breakneck speeds with nothing but a shredded walmart baggie waving like the tail of a comet behind him.
In restrospect we note that innadequate consideration was given by the safety equipment/parachute designer/specialist to the physical relationship between frictional heating of objects reentering the earth's asmosphere and the melting point of ultra light polymer based parachute material.
Even in the presence of our onsite paramedic/oral heath specialist we had little hope of Beanie Baby surviving the impact of such a horrific, unrestrained freefall. Our greatest fears were upon us with images of beans and synthetic stuffing exploding in clouds of dust and flying cow patties in the landing field when nature unexpectedly intervened and a miracle occurred.
Disaster was averted (this time) and Beanie Baby was rescued from the tree intact and ready for another go. At this point his early defenders became willing participants in multiple launches (each taking turn after turn firing the bean cannon) that would forever cement the little ginger bread man in our memories as a brave and willing airman.
Unfortunately, as is the case with many an adrenaline junkie, some permanent brain damage and facial melting was sustained during the course of these arial excercises.
***Please note that an actual Beanie Baby was actually harmed during the actual documentation of this aerial excercise. Do not attempt this with actual living persons,children or animals at home.
What we do for a little fun!!
ReplyDeleteThis made me laugh . . . a lot!! What a brave gingerbread boy!
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