Hey, nobody forced you to work in the sex industry.
No they didn’t. They taught us to slice off fingers carving Ivory soap with a steak knife. They let’s us handle mercury too. See how it roles around and joins back together. Now lets make a barometer with an open dish of mercury that we’ll leave out for a month.
Did you have any ham and cheese in your pocket?
I love hot pockets.
Boy, boy, crazy boy,
Get cool, boy!
Got a rocket in your pocket,
Keep coolly cool, boy!
{From “Cool” in West Side Story}
True Blue Jack
Damn! Beat to the Post again! I had the same one as this and agree, the 9v, with both terminals at the one end, will short quickly and effectively and make you painfully aware of your mistake.
Now THAT was funny!
I think I peed a little
That would put out the pocket fire.
or short another battery.
This has happened to me. I had a AA battery and a pocket full of assorted change, mostly quarters. It must have gotten to what I would estimate to be 150° F by the time I realized what was going on.
There was also a time when I had to replace several batteries on the merchandise alarms at work, all of which used 9V batteries. Before throwing the old batteries in the garbage in the back of the store I mated two of them together. When I felt them getting warm while walking back there I realized I’d better separate them. I shudder to think of what might have happened if I had tossed them in the trash and left them there unattended. Even though the batteries were weak they still generated plenty of heat.
Just wondering if anyone has ever done an experiment on this sort of thing to see how hot a battery making contact with a metal object can get before it catches flame or explodes.
Not only did I stay awake throughout third grade, I was also teacher’s pet, and never once did anyone ever tell me that carrying batteries around with loose change might start a fire or cause burns. I learned this information on June 20, 2007 at approximately 11:25 pm (see above post). I have managed to go through 50 years without learning this…isn’t there a thread somewhere else for admitting this in?
And by the way, I was in the third grade in 1966.
We HAD batteries back then didn’t we? 
Learnt from experience, while on a trip with the Boy Scouts. Couple AA’s I’d just swapped out of my Walkman, pocketful of change. ‘Why is my pocket hot? … Coool!’
Heh. My work here is done.
I didn’t realize changing batteries could be so dangerous. To think, I’ve gotten away with doing this for all my life so far. I’m one lucky SOB.
On a related note, I was working on my car back in college, and removed the battery. I carried it like you carry many heavy loads: one hand on each side, resting against my thighs in front.
A while later I noticed a slight burning/itching. I looked down to discover holes in my pants and rashes on my legs. It appears that there was a battery-acid leak. I was very thankful that (a) I’d been carrying it low and (b) the leak appeared to be near the bottom.
Reminds me of a painful memory from last year. I’ll never carry my Zippo in the coin pocket of my Levi’s again.
Heh. That was me. (I’m OK now.) What I ended up doing was making sure the batteries were in one pocket, and anything metal was in the other. I’m kind of finicky about such things anyway; keys are always in right pocket, etc. So it wasn’t much of an adjustment.
Then I got a better digital camera that recharges on a base instead of taking batteries.
Is this another warning that should go on packaging? Sounds like it.
Hey! I’m going to be a lawyer in a few months; are you trying to put us out of business?