Aqua Net

With duct tape, six soup cans, an empty lighter, and Aqua Net hairspray, I built a cannon that fired a tennis ball. I don’t know how high it went, but it easily cleared our two-story house by a lot.

I cut the bottoms off all the cans, except for one. In the bottom can, I made a dent in the side and punched a hole in the still closed end. I taped them into a long tube. Being safety-conscious, I mounted it to a small piece of plywood for stability. I sprayed Aqua Net, preferably the blue can, into the tube and dropped a tennis ball into it. Once the ball rested on the dent, I sparked the flint wheel on the lighter. BOOM! The tennis ball shot out of the cannon.

This was a lot of fun until it started to escalate. My friends and I used more and more hairspray, trying to see how high we could launch the ball. At some point, we converted to lighter fluid. This took some extra effort. We had to swing the tube so that the lighter fluid would turn into gas. That would really launch the ball.

One time, we had already put the ball in the tube as we swung it, converting the fluid to gas. The fuzz of the tennis ball soaked up the lighter fluid. This time, when it launched, the tennis ball was on fire. That was awesome.

Then we doused the ball in lighter fluid to really get it cooking. The awesome turned towards scary pretty quickly after that escalation. Once the fuzz burns off the tennis ball, the rubber casing begins to melt. It stinks, sticks to everything it touches, and stays hot for a long time.

What felt like reasonable, small steps became something completely out of hand.

I can be terribly convincing when I don’t feel like doing something. I can easily talk myself out of something, and it will feel like a reasonable and small thing. Each small deferral felt reasonable. None was a decision, just not right now. The next thing I know, I am driving in the rain on bald tires. I have two dozen pending actions on the work to-do list. What started as a diet cheat day became a lifestyle.

Can I look at this one thing in the context of everything? Is my life better or worse by taking this next step? How close is this getting to being a flaming tennis ball?

Be curious, be kind, be whole, do good things.