My Breakfast Club Moment...

For those of you that may not know me.....I'm kind of a nerd. If you ask SooperPhrend The Bitchy Housewife, she will tell you without a shadow of a doubt that I am a nerd. Probably because between our discussions on Doctor Who, comic books, LARPing, and various other awesomeness, she is a nerd too.

Being a nerd doesn't lend well to my mechanical skills. My dad is a machinist. He makes things. Out of metal. With like drills and hammers and shit. I nearly failed metal shop, forever solidifying my place as the black sheep.

For our final project in metal shop, we had to create a funnel out of sheet metal. This included shaping, spot welding, and soldering various pieces to make the FUCKING TIN MAN'S HAT. Going to Auto Zone and springing $1.99 wasn't good enough for Mr. 8 Fingers, the teacher, so we had to build a tool that was "useful", because all the prom queen nominees in my metal shop class were going to be under their Cabriolets  with an oil filter wrench and a fucking funnel.

Anyways, I couldn't get my funnel to stay welded. I had to resort to my worst case scenario....asking my father for help. He eloquently expressed his desire to allow me to fail metal shop just for the purpose of making me take the class again. Tense times, y'all. It ended up with my father welding the defective parts of the funnel together for me in the middle of the night, and a legend was born in the SooperFamuly's history books, to be retold at numerous family gatherings, and any other opportunity to teach a lesson about procrastination.

The funnel was my elephant lamp.

Fast forward 20+ years. My 6th grader has a project to create her own "invention". She decides she wants to build a shopping cart/basket that scans items as you put them in. Being the nerd I am, I decide to get involved in the design process. Sounds easy. Get some LED lights, a battery, and good to go, right? A trip to Radio Shack and $20 worth of LED lights, battery holders, wire, resistors, and solder later, and I'm good to go. What the fresh hell have I gotten into? It's the fucking funnel all over again.

What the hell does a resistor even do??

No worries, I got this shit. Put some solder here, there, everywhere.......right? Is that what I do?

Yes, I know it looks like a 6th grader did it. That's the point, peeps!

After wiring and soldering, mounting and testing, the moment of truth arrived. Will my lamp light up when I pull on the trunk?? The scene played over and over and over again. The funnel was laughing at me from over my shoulder.

Suck it, funnel.

The best part? My father walked in after it was done, and congratulated me. Said it looked "cool".

And now this tale will live on as the day SooperDad redeemed himself from the fucking elephant lamp.

Sincerely yours, Soop.