Grenade Go... Boom?

If you are like me—at least in this one small way—the first time you heard gunfire in real life you were disappointed. In movies guns sound menacing. The bass heavy impression of movie gunfire is the bark is only slightly less fearsome than the bite. In reality gunfire is more treble than bass, more pop than BOOM because it sounds like what it is: firecrackers configured to propel a projectile. I've only heard the sound of small-caliber guns—pistols, rifles, shotguns—so maybe it's different with AK-47s and M16s, but I doubt those sound like the movies either. Theatrical gunfire invokes the wrath of gods but real gunfire is encased in a tube the size of my middle finger. That's just not enough room to stuff a god into.

Before last Friday night I had never pondered the perception vs. reality of grenades. I know even less about about them than guns. I've never seen a grenade in real life and they're less prominent in movies and TV shows. The extent of my knowledge is pretty much limited to knowing that some grenades look pineapples and others don't. Are there different "caliber" grenades, so to speak? I don't know but I assume so. The one thing I can tell you about grenades from firsthand experience is they sound nothing like guns.

On Friday Spectra and I were on our way to eat a vegetarian restaurant in the Rama 9 neighborhood. We took the MRT (subway) to the Rama 9 station and then walked a kilometer to Anothai. We'd never walked through that neighborhood before so there was some starting, stopping, and the occasional pause to consult phones. All totally normal.

We were walking along a big street, like 6 lanes, with heavy traffic. There were people sitting on the sidewalks eating. Big construction projects on both sides of the streets. A skyscraper shaped like a G (I can't remember why a G) was under construction. This is typical Bangkok. Behind us there was an atypical BOOM! I'm talking about the kind of boom that flips your fight-flight switch. It was one notch below a "did I just get struck by lightening" boom. I did not care what made the sound, I did not know how near its source had been, I just wanted to get away from it at a healthy but not panicked pace.

Whatever it was, it was bad and if any people were affected by whatever made the sound it wasn't going to be pretty. After we'd put some space between us and the sound Spectra and I speculated about what it might have been and agreed it was probably something heavy falling from a great height at one of the construction sites. We hoped no one was hurt, ate dinner, walked back along the same route and didn't give it another thought.

The next day Spectra saw a story in the news about what we heard. Someone threw a grenade into the intersection and no one was hurt. Who threw it, why it was thrown, or who/what the target may have been were all unknown. There were a couple of soldiers nearby but that's not saying much around here these days. The type of grenade was not described. It was just a "grenade." That was the end of the story and all I'd add to it is this:

Ladies and gentleman, the sound of "just" a grenade will put the fear of gods in you.