Stress Test
A Thursday Prompt story
© 2026 by Walter Reimer

Prompt: hypothesize


Yes, this is a true story.

NO, it does not explain my behavior or my sense of humor or the way I think. Got it?

Good.

With that disclaimer out of the way, away we go . . .

Way back when I were a lad, we’re talking the mid to late Sixties here, I and my brother and my male cousins all owned cars and construction equipment made by a company called Tonka. They were a lot larger than the small British-made Matchbox cars.

Tonka vehicles were made of steel with plastic bits for the seats and windshields. One of them that I was very proud of was a VW Beetle that was a light-drinking shade of gloss black with a tan interior. Very nice car.

The construction vehicles were a good bright safety yellow, and one purchase came with a plastic replica of the hard hats you see people wearing at building sites and so on. All in safety yellow, of course, to give kids the impression that they were actually working on making roads and hauling rocks and such.

I was an inquisitive lad, and I had one of those hard hats. One day I started thinking of how much punishment one of these helmets was capable of taking before it broke. Yes, I was all in favor of destructive testing, and what of it? So I developed a theory that the stout plastic would be able to withstand an impact, from height, from a concrete block, without breaking.

Okay, the theory’s set. The testing venue for this was at my cousin’s house’s driveway, where the west side of the driveway was bounded by a five-foot retaining wall. The concrete block was a cubical mass roughly eight inches on a side with a hollow core. Looking back, I think it might have weighed ten pounds.

We have a theory, and the test conditions are set. I was very proud that I was following the scientific method, but there was one variable I didn’t account for.

Me.

Yes. With the hard hat on my head, I sat at the base of the retaining wall and waited while one of my cousins (the older one, thanks Drew) dropped the concrete block on my head. I can’t fault his aim, which was true and caused the eight-inch concrete block to land directly atop the safety yellow plastic hard hat from a toy company that was the only thing between the aforesaid block and my head.

Kids? Don’t try this at home. Please.

I recall my little brother and my cousins looking at me with some concern. I had been stunned but didn’t lose consciousness. The block was resting on the driveway beside me, undamaged, and I took the plastic hard hat off to examine it.

The helmet was cracked enough for me to call it shattered, and I was bleeding from a cut on my scalp. I estimate, again from the advantage of hindsight, that the helmet absorbed over ninety percent of the kinetic energy imparted by the concrete block, and a damned good thing, too.

I went home, got bandaged up, and there was of course the requisite punishments that parents in the Sixties could mete out to an errant child. Trust me when I say that I earned every swat from a hand and every stroke with a belt during my childhood.

Lessons learned? Basically to think through a hypothesis before testing it, to very carefully define the test parameters, and to always emphasize safety to prevent injury to yourself or others.


end