italie |
|
MAME owes italie many thank yous, hah
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/20/03
|
|
Posts: 15246
|
|
Loc: BoomTown
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Another fun experience for the "only me" file...
#325726 - 05/08/14 04:28 AM
|
|
|
Window shopping (literally and figuratively) at HomeDepot during lunch today. As I'm leaving, I stop in the exit vestibule to get a hot dog from the mini cafe they have set up. The vestibule is completely enclosed with inner and outer store doors, about 200-300 sq ft.
I'm 3rd in line, and there is one lady dishing out the dogs. A guy exits the store with a cart full of the longest fluorescent tubes I've ever seen. Must have been 8'-10' in length, and he had a ton of them. I only get a brief look at him, and then go back to looking at my phone.
Just as the inner store doors close behind him, BOOM. Not just any boom, but the loudest boom I've ever been exposed to in my life. Car backfire, shotgun...nothing compared to the sound I heard, echoing off of the walls in this vestibule.
In the movies, when a large bomb goes off, and the person just stands there in a daze while a high-pitched squeal slowly gains volume in their ears? Yeah, exactly like that in real life.
About 15 seconds go by before the four of us (not including light-bulb guy) regain our senses and realize what had happened. The light bulb guy had already made a break for it. He left his cart, and a room filled with broken glass shards covering every inch of it.
Employees start to chase after the guy. Another calls 911, thinking a bomb went off. The rest of us, ears still ringing, started picking glass out of our hair, clothes, and skin. The hot dog lady lost her entire inventory.
10 hours later, my ears are still not back to normal. I'm still picking glass out of my clothes. Walked away with only a few scrapes.
|
|
|
| Sune |
|
Connected
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 5648
|
|
Loc: Lagoa Santa, Brasil
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Jeez
[Re: italie]
#325727 - 05/08/14 04:31 AM
|
|
|
> Just as the inner store doors close behind him, BOOM.
Did the doors close on the tubes? Or did they just decide to blow up??
S
|
|
|
| italie |
|
MAME owes italie many thank yous, hah
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/20/03
|
|
Posts: 15246
|
|
Loc: BoomTown
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Jeez
[Re: Sune]
#325728 - 05/08/14 04:38 AM
|
|
|
> > Just as the inner store doors close behind him, BOOM.
>
> Did the doors close on the tubes? Or did they just decide to blow up??
>
> S
No clue. Could have been a possibility considering how long they were.
|
|
|
|
Re: Jeez
[Re: Sune]
#325729 - 05/08/14 04:45 AM
|
|
|
> > Just as the inner store doors close behind him, BOOM.
>
> Did the doors close on the tubes? Or did they just decide to blow up??
>
> S
And he ran off? Having spent a few hundred on florescents just to have the store he bought them at destroy them on him?
|
|
|
| italie |
|
MAME owes italie many thank yous, hah
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/20/03
|
|
Posts: 15246
|
|
Loc: BoomTown
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Jeez
[Re: TriggerFin]
#325730 - 05/08/14 04:48 AM
|
|
|
> > > Just as the inner store doors close behind him, BOOM.
> >
> > Did the doors close on the tubes? Or did they just decide to blow up??
> >
> > S
>
> And he ran off? Having spent a few hundred on florescents just to have the store he
> bought them at destroy them on him?
One of the employees said the same thing. Maybe he got freaked out at the noise, or the mess he made, or that he might have seriously injured someone.
|
|
|
| DMala |
|
Sleep is overrated
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 05/09/05
|
|
Posts: 3989
|
|
Loc: Waltham, MA
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Jeez
[Re: italie]
#325731 - 05/08/14 05:06 AM
|
|
|
> > > Just as the inner store doors close behind him, BOOM.
> >
> > Did the doors close on the tubes? Or did they just decide to blow up??
> >
> > S
>
> No clue. Could have been a possibility considering how long they were.
Did they call in hazmat? I believe those long tubes still have a decent amount of mercury in them. I'd expect management at a place like Home Depot to freak out about something like that.
I worked in a record store years ago, and we got a box from corporate that was pretty bashed on one end. I cut it open to see what the damage was, and ended up with a snootful of white powder because it was a box of long fluorescent tubes and about half were broken. We probably should have called someone in to deal with that, but we were dumb and just cleaned up the broken glass. I think we even kept the box around and salvaged the unbroken ones. I probably got about half my lifetime exposure of mercury in the backroom of that store.
|
|
|
| Tomu Breidah |
|
No Problems, Only Solutions
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 08/14/04
|
|
Posts: 6820
|
|
Loc: Neither here, nor there.
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Jeez
[Re: italie]
#325733 - 05/08/14 05:26 AM
|
|
|
> > > Just as the inner store doors close behind him, BOOM.
> >
> > Did the doors close on the tubes? Or did they just decide to blow up??
> >
> > S
>
> No clue. Could have been a possibility considering how long they were.
IMO: Couldn't have been the doors closing on the tubes since those are usually motion activated. I'd have to guess that static electricity was involved somehow. But I dunno.
If it's determined what caused it I'm sure the store would make a rule on how to handle such things. Only so-many bulbs on a cart at a time... 
|
LEVEL-4
|
|
| Sune |
|
Connected
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 5648
|
|
Loc: Lagoa Santa, Brasil
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
|
> IMO: Couldn't have been the doors closing on the tubes since those are usually motion
> activated.
Maybe he stopped to scratch his butt.
S
|
|
|
| italie |
|
MAME owes italie many thank yous, hah
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/20/03
|
|
Posts: 15246
|
|
Loc: BoomTown
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Jeez
[Re: Sune]
#325738 - 05/08/14 01:52 PM
|
|
|
> > IMO: Couldn't have been the doors closing on the tubes since those are usually
> motion
> > activated.
>
> Maybe he stopped to scratch his butt plate.
>
> S
|
|
|
GatKong |
|
Tetris Mason
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 04/20/07
|
|
Posts: 5907
|
|
Loc: Sector 9
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Ka-BOOM at da Depot
[Re: italie]
#325743 - 05/08/14 03:36 PM
|
|
|
|
|
| italie |
|
MAME owes italie many thank yous, hah
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/20/03
|
|
Posts: 15246
|
|
Loc: BoomTown
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
You're confusing "kaboom" with "bada bing bada boom" <nT>
[Re: GatKong]
#325755 - 05/09/14 02:39 AM
|
|
|
Heyhoooo
|
|
|
|
Re: Jeez
[Re: DMala]
#325766 - 05/09/14 02:19 PM
|
|
|
> I probably got about half my lifetime exposure of mercury in the backroom of that store.
When we were kids, one summer my younger brother and I lived in a hick town in eastern Long Island with nothing there for kids to do, and all the time in the world on our hands. We spent a lot of time exploring and came across an old dilapidated firehouse. The FD kept their supplies there instead of in the newer firehouse, including boxes upon boxes upon boxes of 6' fluorescent bulbs. I can't imagine how many bulbs we broke doing lightsaber battles or javelin tosses, or how much toxic material we touched or inhaled. Kids!
|
|
|
| Pi |
|
Allergic to life
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/20/03
|
|
Posts: 6449
|
|
Loc: Room 101
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Jeez
[Re: jibmums]
#325776 - 05/09/14 10:07 PM
|
|
|
This reminds me that I keep about 30cc of mercury in my room. One day (years ago when I used to have plants in my room) a friend came by and asked what was in that flask, and I said "mercury". Jolly him, he took it to inspect, asked if he could open it to see it better, and I allowed. One or two seconds later, he tripped somehow, don't know how, and poured some mercury over an effenbaschia. I tried to recover the most, but the poor plant died some weeks later. It's still unclear to me if the plant died due to the mercury or because, in my room, plants usually die. Even cacti.
And when I was a kid, whenever a thermometer broke, I liked to play with the mercury.
|
Wound up, can't sleep, can't do anything right, little honey / Oh, since I set my eyes on you. / I tell you the truth.
I can't get it right / Get it right / Since I met you...
|
|
|
Re: Jeez
[Re: DMala]
#325780 - 05/09/14 11:48 PM
|
|
|
You would need quite a lot of bulbs to get a raindrop's worth of mercury out of them. Mercury arc rectifiers are much more fun. 
|
|
|
Index 
Threaded 
Another fun experience for the "only me" file...
Reply
[Re: 
