LuckettStories - Da Bomb

We've had such an insane amount of funny and crazy stories over the years that it doesn't even make sense. We've been told many times that we need our own sitcom or at least to write this stuff down somewhere. So we're going to start now - we're gonna dig deep and bring to you all of the most ridiculous ones we can remember. So here we go with our first weekly post from our collection of LuckettStories!

Da Bomb 

Thursday night was always my auction night, my husband would take the kids and I was completely free for the entire evening. I would head to Cochran's Auction and spend every minute of the evening alongside the auctioneer, so I wouldn't miss anything that might fall through the cracks. Every bowl, bottle, antique toy and anything else I could afford with that certain "look," I bought. This particular evening there were lots of toys - kiddie microscopes, biology sets, and some old fashioned chemistry sets with pretty bottles and really cool labels. As always I bought it all, boxed it up, threw it in my rusty old van and headed home. The next morning I hastily threw all these boxes on the ground to make room for my kids car seats, and ran them up to their A.M preschool. After returning home, I tossed the boxes back into the van and headed to my store, My Wits End, that's just up the road from Lucketts.
That day I spent unpacking my newfound treasures, cleaning them up, pricing them, and artfully displaying them throughout my little shop. Proud at my productive days work, I could finally head home.

A day or two had passed when a customer came in and showed a keen interest in the old chemistry set, much to my delight. He asked, "Do you know what you have here ma'am?" Excited by his tone, I figured I might have finally found something worth a lot of $. "No," I said, "but I love the shape of the bottles and the pretty labels, I think it's probably from the 1940's or 50's." "Yes, your probably right about the time frame, but this bottle here is [blah blah acid] and over time it oxidizes and becomes very volatile...like a bomb. I'm a bomb squad guy from Fairfax County and this bottle could explode from the slightest vibration, even as slight as someone opening or closing your front door." Freaked out and realizing how much I had already carelessly thrown the bottle around, I asked what I should do. "We're going to need to call in the bomb squad and have them detonate the bottle."


Seriously, I wish I could make this stuff up, but here's what happened next... We gently left the shop (making sure to put up the closed sign) and called the bomb squad, who also freaked out. They quickly brought out their entire detonation unit, had a man in full bomb squad armor bring out the bottle, and detonated it in a local field! In the process they closed off route 15 for almost the entire evening and earned my unknown little shop a spot on the 6 o'clock news.

Lessons learned? Pay attention in chemistry class OR only buy pretty bottles that are empty, cause 15 minutes of fame is highly overrated.