“All I had was one little grenade and they went overboard surrounding my car and calling the bomb squad. PFFT!”
“Everyone who’s had a bomb squad called on them, raise your hand.”
I’m very fortunate that my County Sheriff’s office and the State Police Bomb Squad that responded to their call were more discerning than some of the police that we have heard about in parts of our nation and world. Here is what happened yesterday:
My siblings and I have been cleaning out our brother’s house getting ready to put it up for sale. Among the various collections he stored in every room in the house, he was partial to weapons (knives, mostly). As I was clearing off his bookcase, I came across something I thought he brought back from his Army days, a hand grenade. It was a heavy pineapple type with the pin intact. As a novice to these types of weapons, my first thought was that I needed to take it someplace where they would know how to dispose of it properly. Ah, my wonderful County Sheriff.
I wrapped it in layers of paper towels (the only other option was a box and I didn’t want to have it rattling around in it while I drove to the Sheriff’s office. BOOM was not a result I wanted to experience.) and placed it securely into the cup holder. I parked at the sheriff’s office and left the potential boomy thing in my car, told them what I had and that I wasn’t sure if it was live or not. The building came alive with officers coming out of the woodwork.
The sergeant told me that they didn’t deal with anything like that and he had called the State Police Bomb Squad to take care of it. I really didn’t know the thoughts going through all of the officers milling around, but after they saw me, I’m sure they weren’t too worried about an innocent looking little lady with a dopy grin and a back brace … “We can take her if she starts to act up”! Like, how much damage could I do, right!? Little did they know that I could have taken on that one skinny little officer in my heyday. Ok, maybe not with that gun strapped on his hip. Of course, I laughed with the sergeant when he said, “What kind of protection against a hand grenade would paper towels afford?”. I’m sure they knew I was no threat. A dummy, maybe, but no threat.
The sergeant took no chances, though, and set up a blockade around my Jeep. He said I couldn’t drive it with it in my car. So, I hung around for an hour or so until the bomb squad showed up. When they got there, I explained to them what I told the sergeant, gave the lead officer my keys and watched as he opened the door with my key fob. I laughed at the thought I had, “What if the electronics set off the hand grenade?” … ok, that was stupid. When I told the officers what I was thinking, they joined me in laughing at my overactive imagination.
He then unwrapped the paper towels and brought the hand grenade over to where the three of us stood. “What? You are going to show it to me instead of putting it in one of those boom-proof containers?” Then, looking at the sergeant with a sheepish grin, I said, “Guess I watch too many cop shows, eh?” More laughter.
Turns out that this deadly hand grenade was ‘inert’. That was a nice way for the officer to tell the silly lady that, see this hole in the bottom of the device? Yeah, no threat. He then kindly explained to me what that meant, unscrewed the top to show me that the mechanism to make it go BOOM was missing and asked me if I wanted to keep it. Ah, no. You can dispose of it.
I thanked them all, profusely apologized and they were so kind to not make me feel like the dummy I was. I am, however, really pleased that I was able to give them a very funny story to tell their co-workers and friends.
Of course, as I was waiting for the bomb squad, I texted my siblings and my good friend (who I’m sure was rolling his eyes at my stupidity for carrying a possible boomy thing in the car AND wrapping it in paper towels) all about it. My little brother texted back, “Now you’re going to be put on a terrorist watch list. I’m going to be reading about you in the news!”. Gee, thanks, Jason. And he wasn’t the only one to say that I was going to make the newspaper. Guess I better check the weekly paper just in case. I need to prepare myself to be embarrassed when I go to church on Sunday.
Maybe you should have dressed up like Bonnie Parker before heading to the Sheriff’s office.
I’ve got one on the book case….
A Lumbar Rack?
Better to treat is as real and find out it is inert rather than the other way around.
During my brother’s time in West Germany (remeber when?), they would find small bombs from WWII now and again while excavating for new projects. They “dispose” of these in place. With live explosives. In one case, blasting dirt into the community swimming pool the day before opening for the season…
Used to play army with them as kids. Could buy them at the army surplus.
Hope these local law enforcement officers never have to deal with a school shooting like Uvalde, they seem more than a little ill equipped.
I’m serious.
I’ve got a Practice bomb from the 50’s ( a Forerunner to the BDU-33 We used to
Load on F-4’s) on My Humidor, it’s got an Electrical Safety pin from a TER
(Triple Ejector Rack) with a “Remove before Flight” Streamer on it…I dug it
up on Ballast Key …Which was a former Navy Bombing Range 11 Miles West of
Key West…I’m sure it would put the Local Yokels in a sweat….
Grafenwe’re (de-sp) base housing 1960s young kid memory Dug holes and found all kinds of stuff.
The towel? No, I’m not a terrorist. I just washed my hair.
@Claudia – This is YOUR story?
You shoulda told us BEFORE you went to the cops. You could have made a couple bucks selling it to one of us.
Now you’re going to be put on a terrorist watch list…”
You’re MAGA – you already were on a list.
I used to read stories about WWII vet’s descendants finding full auto firearms (tommy guns, grease guns, MGs, ) in their closets they had snuck back when returning from the front. Notice you never read them anymore. Descendants are way to smart to tell anyone nowadays…
The Driver side protective coneage looks excessive. I could have done it whith half of those cones.
Thank goodness they kept the handicapped space open.
I’ve never had the bomb squad called on me. Well ok just that one time in Bakersfield…
Great story. Next time just leave it where it is and evacuate, then call the cops.
“The boomy thing”… <—- that's my favorite part of the narrative!
Our very own fake terrorist!
Great headline. 🙂
You bad in a good way !
Need to work saint in there somewhere…
Oh Claudia, boy do you live an exciting life!!! Only you LOL!!! Well you did the right thing and how in the world would you know the grenade had the mechanism to make it go BOOM was missing!! None of them in that police station, I’m sure knew what to look for.
You are one brave lady!!! Kisses to all!
Now if it were me, and not knowing if it were a live one or practice. I would have wiped it clean of any prints and with gloves on gone to an antifa or blm gathering and pulled the pin and chucked it into the crowd! Live round would have been great, but even small boom enough to make them shit their pants would have been ok too!
“boomy thing”? Eye roll.
Claudia, boom thing. Hilarious. Next time you find a minature inert green pineapple please check with the resident IOTW smart alecs on proper disposal. Like mailing to DJT with Chuck Schumer’s return address.
When I was a kid we got some of our best stuff by riding our Stingrays to the training areas on Ft Lewis. The best was yellow powder we got from cracking open signal flares. But live blank powder was good stuff too. There was always enough live stuff laying around that we could keep ahead of the buzz kills that kept confiscating our supplies of detonators, propellants and explosives.
Boys like to blow shit up. All real red blooded American boys blow shit up. That’s just a fact of life.
Sweet sweet Claudia, you really know how to have a good time.
I’m sure all the cops will know you now and smile when they see you.