Doubting Thomas: Hoist Your own Petard

Friday, March 18, 2011

Hoist Your own Petard

Week 48 Topic: Hoist Your own Petard
bonus points
(hard, 2 points): incorporate chills running down your spine
(easy, 1 point): include a secret compartment in an attic

A petard was a small bomb used to blow up gates and walls when breaching fortifications. The term has a French origin and dates back to the sixteenth century.[1] In a typical implementation, it was commonly either a conical or rectangular metal object containing 5 or 6 pounds of gun powder, activated with a slow match used as a fuse.
The word remains in modern usage in the phrase to be hoisted by one's own petard (or to be hoist with one's own petard), which means "to be harmed by one's own plan to harm someone else" or "to fall into one's own trap", literally implying that one could be lifted up (hoisted, or blown upward) by one's own bomb.
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. I felt a shiver run down my spine and I got up to turn up the heat and make a cup of hot chocolate. When it occurred to me that our fearless leader Marvin threw us a curve ball. After all, which two characters in Looney Tunes history have most been hoisted by their own petard?
Wile E Coyote and Marvin the Martian.
Personally I am a Marvin fan.
I always have been.
Marvin reminds me of when my son when he was around 5 years old. He was helping me look for Christmas decoration boxes in the attic, when he found the covered entrance to the part of the attic that contained the sewer vents to the roof, air conditioning duct work, electrical boxes etc. He asked why we have a secret room in the attic (the door was only 3 foot by 3 foot). After explaining it really was not a secret room, just the working part of the attic, he wanted to take a peek. So I opened the door for him to take a peek. After poking his head in the door, he spotted a dusty box. He grabbed it and pulled it out into the attic with us.
I knew in an instant what the box was! It was my Marvin collection! I had been looking for that box for several years. Inside were my Marvin dolls (plushie and figurine), Marvin coffee cup, Marvin's plushie spaceship, Marvin sleep shirts, Marvin photon guns, videos and much more!
My son after watching the video's and stealing my Marvin plushie doll, would then walk around the house talking in his Marvin voice. Imagine this, a blond little 5 year old boy with a pair of plastic Marvin guns stuck in his waistband, hugging a Marvin plushie, telling you things like;, "Earthling, you are making very angry!", "Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth- shattering kaboom!"
When he turned 18 the very first thing he did was to get a Marvin the Martian tattoo on his bicep. So I guess I can say, I handed my love of Marvin to a whole new generation.

Ready to do his master's bidding K9 is Marvin's faithful companion

Marvin the Martian is not a bad guy, he mearly wants to blow up the Earth because it's blocking his view of Venus.

Disintegrating anything that gets in his way is his normal response.
In a pinch he has Instant Martians - just add water

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