The Caps Incident
Standing in my driveway, I saw William’s dad leaving for work. William had texted me earlier that morning to tell me to wait until his dad had left for work. I was to head straight over as soon as I saw him leave. There was no warning as to what was about to go down. I hopped on my bike and pedalled as fast as I could to William’s house. I was so excited to find out what was going on, that I rode right up into his garage with my bike. I skidded to a halt beside his workbench and quickly looked at the plans he had on the board in front of him. They looked interesting, as did all of William’s plans. William wasn’t in the garage yet, so I studied them very carefully. I wasn’t quite sure what the first plan was about.
It looked like a picture of William and I and in it he had some sort of hammer or mallet in his hand. I was apparently taking a picture of him and there appeared to be a camera or something on a tripod recording us.
The strangest part was that there was an object on the floor that William was about to crush with the hammer. It appeared to be some type of small roll or a cylinder of some sort. In the background was his dad’s pool table, so I knew this was going to take place in his basement. This must have been why William was waiting for his dad to leave.
I began to think of all the various items that the object could be and thought maybe it was a giant marshmallow. However, that idea seemed rather dumb, so I began to think of other interesting things it could be. Then, the side door to the garage flung open and William came bustling in towards the workbench. William was carrying a small box that he had partially concealed in his hand. I then quickly turned around to look at the next plan.
I began to really rack my brain to figure out what the plans were about and what the cylinder-shaped object on the floor was. William ran up beside me and started to fill me in on his latest plan. He was going to scare his mother by creating an extremely loud noise in the basement that would be directly below her. At first, I questioned him on why he would scare her, but then I realized that maybe it was best that I didn’t know the reason why.
William continued to explain his plan and then slowly opened his hand to show me what he was carrying. Everything started to make perfect sense as he produced a box of caps. (Just in case you don’t know what they are, caps are basically little rolls of paper with gunpowder on them. Normally, you would put them in a cap-gun and only fire one off at a time.) However, William decided that an entire roll would be better. This meant we were about to have a lot of fun!
Later on in the day, his mother would be sitting down to watch a baseball game on TV. He would wait for a break in the action and then smash the caps creating an unexpected explosion. (Well, at least unexpected for his mom.)
William began to tear up as he imitated what he thought his mother would do. She’d probably jump up out of her chair and wave her arms wildly in the air with a look of terror on her face. He thought it was going to be hilarious! I then glanced again at the second part of his plan. It showed his mother jumping in the air flailing her arms like a chicken. (His poor mom!)
It was time to get the plans into action, so William asked me to go downstairs and set up his grandpa’s video camera (that he secretly “borrowed”) to capture the moment. I was to record the historic moment on film so we could look back on it one day and laugh.
I hustled downstairs and saw that William already had a few hammers set on the floor by a giant taped ‘X’. The spot must have been located directly underneath his mother’s chair above. I even bet William measured it out to the exact spot. His grandpa’s video camera was in a bag on the pool table, so I quickly pulled my tripod out of my backpack (Yes, I carry one in my backpack for some reason.) and started setting up the camera. I decided to plug the video camera in and found an extension cord in the nearby furnace room. I was careful not to disturb his father’s pool table that was pretty close to the spot. His dad was fanatical about his pool table and always told us to be extremely careful when we were downstairs. It then occurred to me how most of William’s stunts happened when his dad wasn’t home. Coincidence?
I also thought it would be good to have my cell phone handy too, just in case the video camera failed. We didn’t want to miss anything! I turned on the camera and began to take a few practice shots.
Finally, William came quietly down the stairs carrying his dad’s sledgehammer. I wasn’t so sure what his intentions were with the sledge, but I was intrigued. I figured one of the hammers he already had would be fine for a single roll of caps. Only time would tell what his intentions were with the sledgehammer.
William pulled a box of caps out of his pocket, opened it and stood the roll on its end right on top of the ‘X’. He then grabbed one of the hammers and pretended to smash the caps on the floor. It was pretty funny as William simulated the hammer flying out of his hands as he staggered backwards from the make-believe explosion. We then checked everything over to make sure it was all in place. Now, all we had to do was wait for his mom to turn on the baseball game and the excitement would begin.
The two of us went back upstairs to see what was going on. His mother was in the kitchen making a birthday cake for William. Guess what? It was William’s birthday and he was going to celebrate it with a big bang! (Pun intended!)
We hurried into the kitchen to see what the cake was going to look like, but it was in the oven and his mother told us to go outside and play. So, the two of us headed back to the garage to discuss how things were going to play out. Basically once his mom was sitting down watching the game, William and I were to walk by and make it look like we were heading upstairs to play in his bedroom. In reality, we’d really be sneaking downstairs quietly waiting for the big moment. She wouldn’t even know we were in the basement. This would make the noise even more surprising!
After we further discussed the plans, William spotted some earplugs and grabbed a couple packs from his dad’s tool chest. He then tossed them to me, and I shoved them into my back pocket for later. It was better to be safe than sorry we always said.
The two of us decided to go spy on his mom to see where she was, so we headed to the back patio and spied through the window. She was sitting in her chair watching the game. It was go time! As fast as we could, the two of us ran back into the garage and then headed back into the house through the side entrance. His mom hardly noticed us as we walked past her and made it look like we were going upstairs to play. Slowly, we crept down the basement stairs and got into position. This was going to be a birthday to remember!
I put the video camera on standby and pulled my phone out of my back pocket to have it ready to go. William walked over to the caps and picked up one of the smaller hammers. I started the video and pointed my phone towards William, ready to snap some pictures. He listened carefully to the TV upstairs and gave me the thumbs up. He waved the hammer in the air a few times and raised it over his head. Then he moved right over top of the caps and froze. I anxiously waited for him to smash the caps, but he then lowered the hammer to the ground and stared at the caps. He raised his left hand and placed it over his mouth. (This was William’s classic thinking face.) I knew that something wasn’t right. I could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t happy with something. But what? Just then he reached into his pocket and pulled out another box of caps, then another, and another, and another, and so on. By the time he was done, he had pulled out six more boxes of caps. Quickly, William opened all the boxes and put all seven rolls on the floor. He then pulled a roll of duct tape out of my backpack and proceeded to tape the caps into one giant cylinder.
He carefully positioned the giant roll in the centre of the ‘X’. He made a few more adjustments and was finally convinced everything was just right. Then William picked up a rubber mallet and eyed it very carefully. I could tell he wasn’t satisfied with it and he set it down and walked over to the sledgehammer. (Man, this was going to be EPIC!)
I got my phone ready again, checked the video camera to make sure it was still taping and focused my eyes on the giant bundle of caps. William listened carefully to the noise upstairs to see if the timing was right and raised the sledgehammer over his head. He then made a mean looking face and stared at the caps. He took a deep breath and brought the sledgehammer down with all his might directly on the centre of the caps. As this was happening, I took as many photos as I could. You had to be there to hear how loud the noise was. It was like being at a fireworks show, but only the fireworks were going off right beside your head. The caps exploded into a giant cloud of smoke and paper. The impact and force of the caps exploding hurled the sledgehammer right out of William’s hands and it flew through the air and landed smack dab in the centre of his dad’s pool table. Instantly, there was a second loud sound as the sledge impacted the table. Then the tabletop split right down the middle and the two pieces dropped to the floor. The two of us watched the table for a second and realized we were in big trouble. Normally, the two of us would laugh at something like this, but this time we both knew William had taken it too far.
By now our ears were ringing and we could barely hear, as we forgot to put in the earplugs. (So much for safety this time.) Through all the smoke, I noticed someone standing at the bottom of the stairs. It was William’s mom and she had cake and icing all over her face and clothes. She was screaming at the two of us, but we couldn’t hear her clearly. William just turned and gave his mom a little wave.
Now, William’s mom never really got mad, but I’m pretty sure she was really upset this time as she looked at the broken pool table. We could both see her lips moving and her arms waving around. (Just like William had predicted in his plan!) Realizing his mom was rather unhappy, William decided to run away leaving me standing there. As he was heading for the furnace room, his foot caught the extension cord on the floor and pulled his grandpa’s video camera off the tripod. It came crashing to the floor and broke into a number of pieces. At that moment I wasn’t too sure what to do next. Carefully, I walked over to the broken camera, picked up the pieces, and then handed them to William’s mom. (I’m not quite sure why I did this.) Then I gave a little smile and walked slowly up the stairs squeezing by his mom. As I went past, I decided to ask her if the Jays won. I didn’t even bother to wait for a reply. I decided to head straight home. By the look on her face, I wasn’t going to see William for some time. (Maybe even forever!)
William texted me later that night and told me what had happened to his mom. During a commercial, she headed into the kitchen and put icing on his cake. As she was walking over to put the finished cake on the kitchen table, there was an enormous explosion in the basement below. It scared her so badly that she jumped in the air, slipped, and landed on her back on the floor. The cake came crashing down on top of her, making a huge mess. She slowly got up off the floor and then wandered downstairs to see what was happening down there. That’s when she saw us and the chaos we had created.
William said he was going to be punished (No surprise there!), but wouldn’t find out until the next day. I fired off one more text.
William
Today 1:57 PM
As I finished texting with William, I thought at least he had a birthday to remember.