Total Plastics

The popular show ‘Mythbusters’ has a great episode demonstrating the tolerance of aerospace-grade plastic sheet, primarily the material used for cockpit windows. The team replicated a test they learned was used by airplane manufacturers. The test was firing dead chicken out of a canon into the windshield of the cockpit. This, of course, would simulate a mid-air collision between the plane and a large bird. The Mythbusters fired chicken after chicken, both frozen and thawed, into various grades of aircraft windshields. Sometimes the chicken shattered, sometimes the windshield shattered. Regardless which won, it made for riveting TV.

The comedy special “The Blue Collar Comedy Tour” referenced the job of aircraft windshield tester. They argued that never, during any job fair or career day, did anyone ever mention that there’s a job where you could get paid to fire chickens through the windshields of aircraft. Had someone mentioned this, Jeff Foxworthy said, 90-percent of his school would have happily volunteered for it.

I once conducted my own test of the durability of a glass bowl.

Growing up we had this set of sturdy glass cereal bowls. One morning while getting one out of the cabinet, it slipped out of my hand and crashed onto the kitchen counter. I gasped, thinking it was going to shatter on impact. It didn’t. It just bounced a couple times and came to a spinning stop on its side. I quickly grabbed it and gave it a careful inspection. With my parents standing right there, I thought for sure that I was in trouble. However, to my amazement, there wasn’t a single crack or chip. My surprise was apparent.

“Yeah, those bowls are virtually unbreakable,” my dad said.

“Unbreakable? Cool.”

Before another word could be said I tossed the bowl high into the air over our tiled ceramic kitchen floor. My parents watched in horror as it hit and shattered into thousand tiny shards, blanketing the entire kitchen. Their gaze immediately changed from the carnage on the floor to their idiot son. Both shot me a look that was equal parts “what the hell were you thinking” and “you’re in so much trouble.”

On the verge of tears, I did what any 10 year old would do. I blamed someone else.

“You said it was unbreakable!” I yelled to my dad.

“Virtually,” he said. “Virtually.”

Along the same lines, over the holiday break and in between football games, I caught a few minutes of the ridiculous, yet somewhat funny, movie ‘Napoleon Dynamite.’ The scene I watched, which reminded me of my glass bowl incident, involved Napoleon’s brother Kip, who had just started a career as a door-to-door salesman peddling tupperware. Kip was trying to demonstrate the strength of a particular plastic container, as it was “virtually” unbreakable. With a potential customer looking on, he placed a plastic bowl under the tire of his van and drove over it. To Kip’s surprise and agony, it shattered.