TIFU The rhubarb hammer incident

I was eleven years old. I had just watched hammer qualification from an athletic Championship on the telly. I went out to our garden for a snack but it was August and birds had eaten every single berry left. No cherries, strawberries or raspberries.

I looked on the rhubarb plants and saw a rhubarb flower sticking up. My mother had learned me, to always remove rhubarb flowers. This to make more stalks as the stalks is what you use on rhubarbs.

I picked the flower and was just on my my way to the compost heap, when I remembered the hammer throwing. So I went the lawn , just near the slope down to the road.

I held the rather flimsy flower with both my hands and started rotating and let go of the rhubarb flower. It flew about five meters. I was 11 meters to the ditch and 13 meters to the side of the road.

It was fun, so I went back to same rhubarb stand and found a bigger rhubarb flower hiding under the leaves.

Second attempt did not fly an impressive length either. Only seven meters, so it was still far from the road.

Now I checked the other rhubarb stand. There I found a very large flower. This one had a weight over a kilo and had a longer and firmer stem the the first two.

In case I would throw it more the 13 meters and it would land on the road. I checked for traffic and there was none. So I started spinning, but I felt I was to close to the slope so I aborted my attempt.

I went back a little bit further on the grass and tried a new attempt. Thia time I was spinning fast and my arms was fully outstretched and angled my arms up from the grass about 45 degrees. Perfect release this time. When I looked out on the road I saw a yellow car speeding from the south on the far lane. I also saw the rhubarb flower still in the air and on collision course with the car.

I throw my self on grass not to be seen, if the rhubarb hit the windshield. There was a large metallic bang, where the rhubarb flower hit the roof of the car. I could see it bounce and end up in the far side ditch 22 meters away.

The motorist applied his brakes and came to a stop. He came out went around his car looking for damage. Then he went back and checked the road. He did not manage to see the green-red-white flower in the grass. Finally he entered his car and drove away.

I sneaked down the slope and picked up all three flowers, that soon ended up in the compost.

I have not thrown any garden produce hammer style since then.

TL;DR

As child I threw a rhubarb flower over 20 meters by athletic hammer style and ended up hitting the roof of passing car.