[Mauser720]

A friend of mine who lives in Missouri has a model of a steam powered tractor. Since I thought it was very interesting, I asked her if we could fire it up and see what it would do. She said "Okay"; however she had never personally started the thing up. It used some kind of fuel pellets and I just assumed that we would need quite a few in order to get the steam pressure up to the actual operating level. So I put quite a few of them in the furnace, or whatever that part on a steam engine is called. It sat on her kitchen floor for quite awhile and then gradually started to sputter and hiss. I had the steering wheel set so that it would run in a big circle. And eventually it was running around in this big circle on the floor just fine. But it kept running faster and faster, and she did not know how to turn it off. Eventually we both realized that unless we did something, it was going to fly off and run into a wall or break something. Quick thinking lad that I am, I just assumed I could grab it as it ran by me, and lift it up from the floor, and just let its wheels spin until it ran out of steam. Initially, this did work; however, as it continued to run faster and faster while I was holding it, it blew one end of the boiler off and splattered black soot and crud all over my face. Fortunately I was not hurt, but I looked pretty ridiculous and it was quite a while before we could both stop laughing. I did send her steam engine back to the factory and they did repair the boiler. And I never started that thing up again. That was my first and last experience with steam power. I'm not sure if this qualifies as "steampunk" but I certainly did look like a "steam punk."