Pied Piper

So Em's usually more interested in the Friendship Circle (her three best friends in the neighborhood) than she is in launching rockets. But since it was right around the corner, I asked if they wanted to ride down on their bikes and watch.



This was the difference between, 'Dad! I don't want to be here. Why do we have to launch rockets? You're obsessed! This is stupid. Mo's eating chalk. No more!' and 'This is so cool! That's Thor's Candycane and the one in the tuxedo is Mr. Creosote and look, this one is The Crapper, it's an outhouse that you can fly.'

Despite no wind at all, we did lose Buster to the tree line. Came close to losing Chief Broom, though a friendly neighborhood cyclist retrieved him before I could go get him.

The girls had a blast chasing the rockets, calling dibs over who got to carry him back.

I thought I'd repaired Thor's Candycane to where he'd open his 'chute, but it didn't open again. I think I just made the inner tube too long on him and there's too much heat when the recovery charge blows. I'm going to build a sequel but with about half the inside tube length. And with a booster stage for nights like this when he might not get lost in the trees without some extra oomph.



Speaking of boster stages. Mr. Creosote could sure use one. He just barely gets enough altitude for a parachute to open before he hits ground. Which makes him, in many ways, the perfect rocket. Still it'd be fun to see him get up and boogie a little more on windless nights, and a booster stage would do that. I might just make my next big BT-80 tube rocket a two stage, but I might just build a booster for this one instead.

I'd lubed up the launch rod and sprayed some silicone down in his launch lugs again, and he still managed to get stuck on the launch rod. So I tried him from the skinny rod, which is barely stiff enough to hold him.




So then by the time we're getting ready to go it's getting dark, fast. Here am I with four kids on bikes, three of them not my own, but who I led down and around the corner for this little fiesta. I could hardly see them, so I told them I'd drive slow behind them to light them up. Which I did.

Then this Asshead is in my rearview, his engine revving. I ignore him, watching the bikes going incredibly slowly up the street in what is rapidly becoming dark. When the Asshead's headlights went to bright, I stopped still.

'Turn off your brights,' I called out the car window.

'Hey, asshole, what's your fuckin' problem?' he shouts back.

'I'm escorting kids on bikes,' I call back, figuring this will cool his jets. I mean, this neighborhood, even the crank heads would understand that, right?

'Get them the fuck off the street,' is Asshead's reply.



Then he tried to go around me, at which point I angled my car across the street to block him and got out. Now he's suddenly rolling up his window like he's wondering if maybe he's cussed at the wrong guy. Which is fine with me. I'm not a violent man, haven't been in anything resembling fisticuffs since I was 16 (maybe younger). But this jerk is the last guy I want thinking that.

'I'm protecting them from assholes like you,' I said when he reluctantly rolled down his window again.

He proceeds to tell me how slow I was driving and to repeat that I should get my kids 'the fuck' off the street. At which point, I really wished I was David Banner so I could beat this guy to death and trash his crew cab pickup without having to be an asshole myself.



What pissed me off the more: three of the four kids (one had peeled off at her house by this point) were in my driveway scared that I was about to get killed.

I hope the Asshead in the pickup truck feels good about scaring children because he was pissed off someone had denied him the chance to endanger them. I was probably making him late for a Walker Texas Ranger rerun.