Sunday, September 23, 2007

quick update

While I was working on my immigration file last Wednesday night, the downstairs neighboor showed up asking for 'white spirit' or 'synthetic thinner'. I don't have that stuff but after he told me what he needed it for, I realized they might need my help anyway. His friend had 'poly-urethaned' his eyes closed! One might ask: how did that happen?
Easy! They were using the poly-urethane foam that comes out of a spray can to fill up some cracks and gaps in their apartment. When they finished they decided to play a little with the leftover foam and sprayed it into an empty pizzabox. Very funny and very smart! It blows up to become a huge ball of foam that wobbles when you push it! How amusing! Especially when the surface tension breaks and the whole thing blows up in your face. Luckily the guy had his eyes closed by the time it hit him. His eyes where fine, the only problem was that they were behind his closed eyelids that were now nicely insulated and stuck under a layer of quickly hardening foam. The can says 'wear safety glasses when using this product' , 'be carefull and plan ahead to avoid accidents'. Bummer, it didn't look like he could win a lawsuit after all these warnings. American warnings seem funny to us 'oh so smart belgians', therefore we don't even think of taking any precautions. After all, we're Europeans, we don't need to be treated like we're 5 year olds! Or do we?
After we tried the 'run water for 15 minutes' solution, and failed at it, we decided to get in the car and drive to the ER. The hospital in BedStuy sees a lot of crazyness I'm sure, but I don't think they had ever seen anything like this before. They were professional about it and gave it first priority. About 5 hours later, our guy was completely cleaned up and good to go again! No damage done, lesson learned the hard way. And a funny story to tell his grandchildren one day: 'Let me tell you about the day I nearly lost my eyes, and insulated my face....'
Meanwhile, this incident gave me another chance to 'bond' with the Belgians and in return that allows me to work for them. I guess the 'New York, No Work' title of my previous post got things rolling. More news soon!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Man man,

het is duidelijk dat de kempen geen groot intellectueel vermogen kwijtgespeeld zijn aan uw onderburen. :-)

Anonymous said...

We might see this in the next season of ER or some other look-a-like TV serie.

Now we know where they get their inspiration from.

:-)