Mythbusters Blog.

Wow, what a story. So it started when my neighbor and friend Tammy called me over to help jump start her car. I get my jumper cables and attached them like normal and started the car up. Well the first set of cables were acting weird; it was smoking and really hot. So I took them off assuming something was wrong with the cables. So I got my other jumper cables and attached them. Immediately after I place them on the batteries and started the car the cables got so hot that they almost caught on fire and quickly ate through the cable from end to end. Smoke was everywhere as it dissolved my cables. Picture it. I place the cables on and from the middle they begin to melt like wax each end heading to the car. Tammy and I have no clue what to do and we both are thinking this very well might blow up each vehicle. So I quickly ask Tammy's daughter Abigail, who is 5 years old, to grab me a stick so I can make sure the heat doesn't damage the cars. She comes back with a 4 inch twig. By the time I come back with an adequate stick the cables completely dissolve and eat into one of her vehicles. All throughout that process I am trying to handle the cables with oven mittens because of how hot they are and I'm not sure if they can shock me (not that an oven mitt would save my life). So as I am trying to put out a near fire, with oven mitts on, an over sized 10 fit stick, Tammy can't stop laughing at what a fool I look like. After we get it all cleaned up I become determined to figure out what happened that triggered the event. Through much research I find out that on one of the cars I accidentally attached the positive on the negative and the negative on the positive. I know that sounds pretty dumb. What made it frustrating is the reason I did that was because whoever put the battery on mistakenly switched the labels. The negative was painted red and the positive had a black cover over it. So I assumed their identities. Once again I am proven that I am not the macho macho man I hope to grow up and be some day. How embarrassing! So there you have it. My promise to share my life with you, the good and the bad. No need to comment, I know how dumb I am and so does Tammy. So the mythbuster on "what happens if you misplace the cables when jumping a car" has been solved. Don't try it at home.