Today's off topic conversation about heat shrink:
While at the farm this past few days, I went to visit my fiancee's cousin. When I pulled up, he was mowing his lawn and his brother-in-law's car was in the driveway with the hood up. I asked what was up. He said that he'd tried starting it and it would stall seconds later, so he popped the hood and found a woodchuck sitting on the engine staring at him, and that it had eaten a wiring harness. I asked if he'd killed it, he said he hadn't, that it was still in the engine compartment.
Between him poking at it with a stick, the dog crawling under the car and barking at it and me with a garden spade waiting to cosh it over the head, it dropped out under the car, but kept climbing back up into the engine compartment. Finally he gets a good poke at it with a piece of rebar and its legs and torso stick out through the frame, but it's managed to wedge its head between the oil pan and crossmember.
After pummeling it repeatedly with the spade while it hung there, effectively turning it into a bag of pulp, we both came to the realization that... we had succeeded in killing the critter, but it was now hanging under the car, up to the groin laying on the ground.
I suggested we fix the wiring harness (the talk of shrink tube triggered this for me) and tell him it's one of those car audiophile ground straps.
Bren R.
