I’m sitting at my desk this morning and I feel this hot sensation on my upper thigh. I thought it was nerves or something and scratch the area and think nothing of it. Then about 30 seconds later I get another burning feeling and I scratch again only to feel something hot.
WTF? Then I realise, as I’m standing up, that the origin of the heat is coming from inside my pocket!
A quick mental inventory of the contents of said pocket don’t reveal anything that could produce heat much less start my pants on fire. As I’m thinking what the hell could possibly be trying to kill me that’s also small enough to fit in my pocket I grab the wad of change that’s in there, practically turning my pocket inside out, and slam it on the desk.
That’s when I see the culprit…a friggin AAA battery. In cahoots with the dozen or so pieces of change in my pocket, settled into place in such a manner as to short out the battery. That sucker was HOT. Too hot to hang onto. I’m guessing only a few seconds or so from bursting, or burning.
NOW I remember how the battery got in there. I noticed my MP3 player’s battery was getting low and I dropped a spare in my pocket before I left for work. Change from the morning coffe purchase? Right into the same pocket. Change from the cafeteria at break time? Right into the pocket again.
Surreptitiously creating a scenario in which the contents of my pants pocket soon had the upper hand.
Folks, don’t mix batteries and change together. Ever.
I had that happen once. It’s more than a warm feeling. It’s like touching the car lighter with your finger tip. I think it was my keys shorting it. I had two AA batteries in my pocket to exchange in a cassette player. I always wrap paper over the plus side now and hold it in place with a rubberband. I await the day when I see a women’s purse burning.
I was lecturing one day and dropped a metal laser pointer onto the floor and picked it up and stuffed it into my pocket. A few minutes later I was like “Uh. . . that hurts. . .” Laser pointer was mighty hot.
Me too, 9 volt, 1973. Later, much much later, I found this feature to be utilized as a kind of handwarmer device in the .mil - two nine volts “plugged” into each other. I thought it looked like a good way to end up with battery electrolyte all over everything and never tried it.
Novice Zippo owners suffer from admittedly only tangentially a semi-related malady when they overfill with fluid, can cause a very annoying rash in the nether regions.
Wait, if he says his pants were on fire when they really weren’t, he is therefore lying, therefore, his pants must be on fire, which means that he’s not lying, so there’s no need for his pants to be on fire…
OP, if you keep this up you just may well develop a solution to the impending energy crisis. Infinite not-fire!
