taser® for Mom

this e-mail was floating around the plant a while back.... I still laugh so hard I tend to hurt myself when I read it...

This was submitted by a guy who purchased his lovely wife a "pocket Taser" for their anniversary.

Last weekend I saw something at the Pawn Shop that sparked my interest. The occasion was our 22nd anniversary, and I was looking for a little something extra for my wife. What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse-sized Taser. The consequences of the Taser were supposed to be short lived, with no long-term adverse effects on her assailant, allowing her adequate time to retreat to safety.... WAY TOO COOL!

Long story short, I bought the device and brought it home. I loaded two triple-A batteries in the darn thing and pushed the button. Nothing! I was disappointed. I learned, however, that if I pushed the button AND pressed it against a metal surface at the same time, I'd get the blue arch of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs. Awesome!!!

Unfortunately, I have yet to explain to wife what that burn spot is on the face of her microwave.

Okay, so I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that it couldn't be all that bad with only two triple-A batteries, right?!!!

There I sat in my recliner, my cat Gracie looking on intently (trusting little soul) while I was reading the directions and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh & blood moving target. I must admit I thought about zapping Gracie (for a fraction of a second) and thought better of it. She is such a sweet cat. But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a mugger, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised. Am I wrong?

So, there I sat in a pair of shorts and a tank top with my reading glasses perched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, Taser in another. The directions said that a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant; a two-second burst was supposed to cause muscle spasms and a major loss of bodily control; a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water.

Any burst longer than three seconds would be wasting the batteries.

All the while I'm looking at this little device measuring about 5 inches long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference -- pretty cute, really -- and loaded with two itsy, bitsy triple-A batteries, thinking to myself, "No possible way!"

What happened next is almost beyond description, but I'll do my best.....

I'm sitting there alone, Gracie looking on with her head cocked to one side as if to say, "Don't do it, master," reasoning that a one-second burst from such a tiny little ole thing couldn't hurt all that bad.... I decided to give myself a one-second burst just for the heck of it. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and HOLY WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!!!

I'm pretty sure Jessie Ventura ran in through the side door, picked me up in the recliner, and then body slammed us both on the carpet, over and over and over again. I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, with tears in my eyes, body soaking wet, both nipples on fire, my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position, and tingling in my legs. The cat was standing over me making meowing sounds I had never heard before, licking my face.

Note: If you ever feel compelled to "mug" yourself with a Taser, one note of caution: there is no such thing as a one-second burst when you zap yourself. You will not let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by a violent thrashing about on the floor. A three-second burst would be considered conservative.

A minute or so later (I can't be sure, as time was a relative thing at that point), I collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up, and surveyed the landscape. My bent reading glasses were on the mantel of the fireplace. How did they get up there???

My triceps, right thigh, were still burning and twitching. My face felt as if it had been shot up with Novocain and my bottom lip weighed 88 lbs.

Still in shock

Typing with tears in you eyes is a PITA. I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

Good, but the ending was a bit anti-climatic. At that point, the intended gift recipient should wake him up to ask why he is laying in a puddle of urine.

I hate to say it since you had such a hard time.

My face hurts from laughing and my wife is looking at me as if something is not right and I might need help.

This reminds me of the time my dad maced himself lol

ugh, mace. I got my girlfriends mace on my hands once and forgot about it. later, I touched my face...somewhere near my eyes.

it sucked.

A friend of mine brought a taser to a party once. Pretty much everyone there (yours truly included) took a hit. His was a piece of crap though. It felt like hair timmers buzzing against my arm. Perhaps the batteries were worn, but the electrodes were just screws stuck in the end.

In high school, I was in a lot of the plays and musicals either as an actor or a crew member. We had wireless mics for a lot of the actors, and those 9V batteries needed to be replaced while they were still at 40%. One year, we figured out how to string them together in a series and we found out that you don't just need to touch your tongue to them when there are a few stuck together.

It became a game.

We'd have 5 or 6 strung together and we'd walk up and touch one end and then the other and ZAP! Then it became 10, then 15, and then finally, something north of 40. 6 of us got in a line, held hands, and one person made contact with one electrode and the other made contact with the other end. That was the most powerful shock I've ever felt. For the next 30 minutes, I swore I was having a heart attack. It literally went through 6 of us!

I'm wondering how many of you are off to the workshop to try this right now. It really works. Don't be an idiot. If you choose to act on your compulsions, please make sure to write about it here.

I had a high school science teacher that had a really old hand crank telephone generator. He loved to get 6 or 8 kids lined up, holding hands, with a lead to each end, and give that thing a couple of hard turns. He thought it was funny, the students, not so much. That was an educational experience. Years later I saw a Miami Vice episode where they used the same thing as a torture device.

For what its worth, the device described here is a stun gun, not a Taser. They are available up to 200,000 volts (maybe more?) but don't shoot the darts that a Taser does. Cheap, too, like less than 20.00. Tasers are much more expensive, but you don't have to touch the baddy, just a point and click thing.

The cat would have done it to you. Those mewing sounds are the last thing a mouse usually hears.

LMAO, as a former correctional officer I've got a bit of experience with said electronic devices, they're fun, but you get ahold of the right one, and the person on the recieving end will wish they've never been born. My favorite is still the one we called "the shield" it was really nothing more than a riot shield with metal bands criss-crossing the front, with two handles and a battery pack on the backside. Hit the buttons on the handles, and the whole front lit up like the forth of july, one look at that device and most jack@#ery stopped quickly when it came to cell extraction time. BTW in Florida, in order to get certified to use said devices, is to get hit with them. Yeah some not only screwed up your day but your weekend to go with it.

A former assistant manager of mine brought one of those pawn shop stun guns to work with him, it kept his late night employees in line, or so he said.. I asked them what they were afraid of, when they responded that "that thing hurts" my response was "lemme see that" I stuck it to my thigh and literaly sat there with it going off for 30 seconds into my thigh(I sat there and timed it with my watch), I promptly handed it back to him and called them a bunch of pansies.

My freshman year of college, there was a guy that had a stun gun who lived in one of the "hangout rooms" in the dorm. When people knocked on the door to come in, he put touch his stun gun to the door knob on the inside. It was all fun and games watching drunk people dance up and down the hall after they grabbed the metal door knob, until I got hit briefly on the back of my neck. Wasn't so funny after that.....

One summer about 10 years ago, my brothers and I all decided it would be a good idea to all buy stun guns. The elation of our brilliant idea was short lived after they arrived.....

I remember getting jolted it in the armpit(summertime, wasn't wearing a shirt), and retaliating later that afternoon with a well placed zapping of said brother on his neck, right under his chin. We stun gunned noses, tongues, and ear lobes all on dares.

Parents ended up taking them away.

One of the jobs I had at a chemical plant was under the tanks where chlorine is made. A brine solution is passed over mercury and jolted with 80bazillion gigavolts of electricity, resulting in chlorine gas, hydrosomething acid and other various nasties. Before you left at the end of the shift, you had to leave a urine sample so they could monitor your mercury intake.While working under the tanks, we had to wear dielectric boots, supposedly to prevent us from getting fried. To test the boots you had to stand in a pan of water and operate a hand crank generator while hanging onto a metal handle. If you felt anything, you knew your boots were bad and had to get a new pair. That little hand generator would give you a pretty good jolt- it only got me once. I didn't go get new boots, I didn't pass go, I didn't tell the foreman to stuff himself- I just picked up my lunch box and headed out the gate. Between the chance of becoming charred remains and the mercury laying all over the place, I figured I didn't need money that badly.

Did it look like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syNUlZ9hZbc

Or sound like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPENzKOmOl0

In high school I took electronics. We were shown how to charge a capasator on a DC power supply. We would then fold the leads back and toss them at each other. We started with little ones but that wasn't enough. Eventually we found one from a color TV, charged it up and tossed it. Fortunatly the guy just saw a large silver canister coming at him and he avoided it. Good thing! It slid into a metal table leg and welded itself to the leg. We stopped after looking at what had happened. Just lucky nobody got hurt.

In the Navy we had some meggors (sp) used for testing insulation (wiring) , similar to the hand crank telephone generator mentioned above, the most I've ever seen anyone take was one full turn of the crank... it put out some very serious current..

Large capacitors have been known to kill. Glad you're still with us.

The old electrician at my plant used to charge up some big old caps from 50hp 3phase motor drives. These suckers were the size of a soda can and he would walk up to newbies on their first day and slip them into their pants pockets and watch as they kept trying to pull them out getting zapped each time. He tried it with me on my first day as well. I calmly looked at him and pushed it up out of my pocket from the bottom through the outside of my jeans and handed it back. "your gonna be trouble" he said.

Playing with giant capacitors = NOT COOL

ditchdigger wrote: The old electrician at my plant used to charge up some big old caps from 50hp 3phase motor drives. These suckers were the size of a soda can and he would walk up to newbies on their first day and slip them into their pants pockets and watch as they kept trying to pull them out getting zapped each time. He tried it with me on my first day as well. I calmly looked at him and pushed it up out of my pocket from the bottom through the outside of my jeans and handed it back. "your gonna be trouble" he said.

Don't you just hate it when your prank doesn't go as planned?

GameboyRMH wrote: Playing with giant capacitors = NOT COOL

I know that now but back then I was young and stupid. But I got over the young part.

LOL I miss my invincibility.

Sometimes.

ya, same here when the kids are roaring past doing things I know I should be able to do but just can't make myself do any more....