Oops!

I guess I can blame it on the fact that I am a guy, but I have had my share of oops moments. Moments where my brain shut down temporarily and I had a complete laps in judgment. I think my grandest oops and most expensive oops came when I first started driving tractors when I was about 11. We had several large John Deere tractors and during the summer, all of them needed someone to drive them. It was an awesome experience driving a tractor. What I loved even more was fueling up the tractors. We had a large fueling tank that had a hose similar to the ones you use at a convenience store, and a pump handle to pump the diesel into the tractor. We typically all fueled up at the same time each day, but I wanted to be a big boy and fuel my tractor up by myself. So I get to the fueling tank, but I am not tall enough to reach the pump handle. So I look around, and I see a smaller hose, more on my level, and it is long enough to reach the tractor. So I go to town pumping my tractor full of fuel. I jump back into the seat, proud of my accomplishment, and I head for the back field. All of a sudden I hear the engine start to make a very unusual grinding noise. Then the grinding turns into a framing, and then into a very loud, smokey, beating sound. I turn off the engine, and I radio for help. I will leave out the next part because; let’s just say papa was not too happy with me. Come to find out, the small hose that was on my level, it was a black water hose. I had filled the tank up with water and I blew up a $90,000 John Deere tractor. Talk about an Oops moment. It is good thing I was the only male child, the only one to carry on the family name, because I think that was the only thing that kept them from killing me that day.