Gnome Roast

   My friend Kenny asked for this tale.  He knows it already 'cause he was there, but I'll tell it now, for you.

It goes like this.
     In the late 80's and early 90s I was a mechanic. I mostly worked on old Vespa scooters, but also "modern" ones like the Yamaha Rivas, Jogs, Zumas, etc. I worked for one of San Francisco's few Scooter shops at the time, which I will not name because, well, you never know.
    Work as a mechanic can be somewhat feast or famine. Many days went by with hardly a break from the wrench, other days were a waiting game. On these slow days, we would amuse ourselves by doing things that were not specifically repair oriented. My supervisor was an English guy who raced motorcycles and drove a hearse. He wore all black, and listened to nine inch nails. He didn't mind our antics, and in fact, he encouraged them. Some times when there was no work to be done, he would shout from his desk, "Oi! Tiki... Blow something up!"
    He was my boss, and  I was obliged to comply.
    Now and then the shock waves from our improvised fireworks would summon the general manager from the front of the building. He would come running back, wild eyed, waving his arms and pleading for us to make it stop.  But for the most part we were able to feign ignorance and blame it on a back-fire or a blow-out.
  Now, the part about the blow-out was not entirely untrue, as we had discovered that in the absence of material more volatile,  you could lock the air compressor hose to the valve stem of an old inner tube, and it will inflate to point of bursting, which, if this were to happen, say in the elevator shaft, creates a quite satisfying "boom" which would cause the sweat shop manager from upstairs to come running down, wild eyed, waving her arms and pleading for us to make it stop.
     One of our proud moments was when we discovered, quite by accident, that our tennis ball canon, modified to accept a lag bolt, was capable of propelling said bolt clean through the cinderblock wall, leaving a cartoon like hole in the perfect shape of the bolt.
     Good times.
      Our general manager was an unaware catalyst to our mayhem. We always seemed to be able to persuade him to buy things that ultimately would be put to bad use.
     One particularly slow day we convinced him that we needed a garden gnome as a mascot, for good luck and to boost moral. We must have seemed sincere, as he went out and bought a us fine concrete garden gnome.
     He placed it at the back entrance to the shop where it sat on its cement barrel, swigging from a mug of beer,  sure to attract a flood of customers.
     As luck would have it, it was also around this time that we discovered that a degreasing gun, properly modified, became a fairly impressive Flame thrower.
      One fine afternoon, our manager came out back to check on the source of shouting and cheering. He came around the corner asking "So, how's our gnome doing...."  and was greeted with this....

So there you have it.
The gnome disappeared shortly after this, and our general manager never would tell us what happened to it.