Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Squidgy plastic


key knife
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.
Here’s a little reminder that petrol isn’t the nicest stuff in the world. After I poured a plastic fuel can of it into the van I picked up my keys. The keyring is a knife/screwdriver set that fell out of a Christmas cracker years ago. It’s a nice item and seemed quite handy so I used it.

I like to use anonymous keyrings if possible. That way if I drop the keys and someone else find them it lowers the chances of them guessing which car to try. OK, if you know your old cars you’d guess that it was a vintage Volkswagen you need to look for but most people will only work out the make. Since there are 4 keys in the set it’s going to take a little longer to get in with them anyway !

I digress. There must have been some petrol on my hands when I picked up the keyfob. After a while I noticed that it felt slimy. Then I spotted the red stains on my palms. This isn’t good.

The red plastic had reacted to the chemical and become slightly liquid. I washed the keyfob in turps and then washing up liquid which stopped the rot. It’s not too badly damaged but I’m not sure I’ll use it again. With then camper back on the road perhaps I’ll pick something up as a souvenir of our first trip.

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