Ironman Pete

I watched the movie “Ironman” yesterday, it was good I guess. The plot wasn’t especially compelling but I found all of the metal smashing, explosions, fighter jets, and the occasional pretty girl to be quite entertaining. I had a slow day and I was sitting at my desk watching it, and as the demented mechanical genius was creating a futuristic robot in the movie, I was inspired to create my own engineering marvel.

I plotted and schemed, I schemed and plotted. I drew up some cryptic blueprints and discretely made my way around the offices gathering up the required supplies and parts. Much like Robert Downey Jr in the movie, I only had the bare essentials to work with but work I did. After nearly 3 hours, I was finished! I sat back and looked at my desk and marveled at my creation, it was so…perfect. It had a clear purpose, a mission even.

My heart started pounding and time seemed to slow as I slowly began to activate the device that I had built…my hands were sweating, everyone seemed to be making me nervous…and finally, with one violent and final thrust I jammed all 15 paperclips that I had carefully twisted together with my Gerber into the electric pencil sharpener and was rewarded with a loud metallic shriek! A robot with blades for fingers and a chalkboard couldn’t have created a more cringe-worthy racket. When all my coworkers winced and began to curse and throw paper at me, I knew that I had succeeded. And it was also at that moment that I realized…I need a life.

Tune in next week, I’m trying a whoopee cushion!