No Pain, No Gain...

As always, when you try something out and haven't the foggiest, Murphy will catch up to you. My PFY decided today to try out the laminator we use to make our internal ID cards.

The principle would be simple enough for Frankensteen to understand. Take one sized piece of paper, sized three to four millimeters smaller than a credit card, insert between the two flaps of a plastic card folder (which is exactly the size of a credit card), turn on laminator, wait until the GO light is on, insert plastic card folder seam first into laminator (on the side that says "INSERT HERE" in bright green letters), wait until card is ejected on the opposite side. No touchy, let cool.

Easy, one would suspect.

But noooo!

My PFY started off by using a piece of stiff cardboard (which was, at least, three to four millimeters smaller than a credit card). Then he turned on the laminator, and without waiting for the ready light, attempted to manhandle the card into the OUT side. For some reason the internal rotor motor decided he was right, and reversed direction, pulling the card completely in. And then the laminator must have realized it was being bamboozled, so it stopped.

I never realized our fire alarm was sensitive to non-smoking burning plastic. But it is.

One false fire alarm (luckily the janitor was able to send the "FALSE ALARM" signal before our local firemen came rushing to our aid), and one fried laminator later, my PFY dared try the process again. With a new laminator, poor beast.

This time he got most of the steps correct. Except the last one. He picked up the scalding card just as it dropped from the output port. My ears are still ringing from his shouts. Anyway, now he has a nice credit card shaped burn mark on his palm, like that evil fellow in Indiana Jones 1 who picked up the searing medallion (idiot!).

As I said. No Pain, No Gain.

Don't know what the PFY gained, but I for one had a bit of fun trying out some of the first aid techniques we had learned in the last compulsory Workplace Safety Class!

PS: PFY stands for "pimpled faced youth", in case you've never heard that term before....