I was looking for a low calorie 'grazing' snack when I originally bought this product. Tastes fine. After my first enjoyment, I experienced something less enjoyable. That might have been something else I ate that day, so some time later, full of wariness and scientific curiosity, I ate some just before leaving work.
1 hour, 30 minutes later, after retrieving the children from school, we arrive back at home.
During this time, the gummi bears, hereafter referred to as The Fuel, were being carefully processed in the fuel system of Space Ship Me. I can only assume that The Fuel is a highly advanced binary propellant because it is non-reactive and benign in storage and even during initial ingestion. But as with all binary propellants, when mixed with the complementary other half of the pairing, the results are highly energetic.
Turning my parental duties over the the capable hands of the Roku and widescreen TV, I proceeded upstairs apace, shedding unnecessary accoutrements as I could tell this cowboy was about to Go Rodeo.
Entering the Launch Facility (a.k.a. real estate agents refer to it as the 'master bath') I approached the Launch Pad itself, a fine furnishing manufactured by American Standard. As it was handy to the direct path of travel, and to further the cause of Science!, I stepped onto the bathroom scale and made note of my weight. I then configured the Launch Pad into the second receiving mode and positioned Space Ship Me atop the launch aperture.
All hatches closed!
Exhaust fans to full power!
Sitzfleisch sealed to Launch Pad support ring! (It's a German double entendre, look it up.)
Fuel flow starting, easing open sphincter, commence count down!
10!
9!
8!
Whoops, 1!
Thrust built rapidly to the 100% rating of the nozzle. The exhaust thundered against the parabolic shape of the Launch Pad and reverberated back upwards, buffetting the structure of Space Ship Me.
I swear, if I had thought ahead to equip the Launch Pad with the kind of camera available for the Discerning Customer with Refined Tastes from a Discrete Retailer, you might have seen shock diamonds.
I know some other customers have thought that they might have needed seat belts, but from my dispassionate observation point, I could objectively see that I had not yet achieved Lift-Off. That happened on the Saturn V launches as well: they had to sit on the pad for a while at full thrust until just enough fuel has burned off to make the thrust exceed weight.
It's a long way to orbit, and I was in a hurry to get to the ISS, so the only thing to do was to go to 125% on the nozzle.
That's where things started to go wrong. Thrust increased, to be sure, hammering the porcelain, but the exhaust flow became turbulent. It was also becoming asymmetric. The signal came from below, "The engines cannae take any moor, Cap'n!" (I have no idea why my arse has a Scottish accent.)
Fuel flow dropped off and the nozzle output dropped to merely 10%, with some damage to the combustion chamber.
But luckily, sitting quietly for about five minutes, The Fuel had regenerated enough pressure that I could make another attempt.
After about thirty minutes and several attempts, I had not achieved lift off, and Thank God, because I realized belatedly that I hadn't a plan for how to get through the ceiling and roof.
But the scale revealed that I had lost seven (7) pounds.
