Dad, We Have a Problem!
By Ovi Catanescu, with memories contributed by his brother Adi
Our Basement Laboratory
When my brother Adi and I were growing up in Brăila, the basement of our apartment building was much more than a place to store things.
It was our own little world. Between my aquariums full of tropical fish and Adi's collection of budgerigars, we already had something resembling a miniature zoo. But animals weren't our only interest. We also loved experimenting.
One day, we came up with an ambitious idea inspired by the military use of smoke screens.
We had learned that soldiers could use thick clouds of smoke to conceal their movements and equipment from the enemy. We thought this was a brilliant technique that could be extremely useful on a battlefield.
Naturally, we wanted to see whether we could reproduce it ourselves.
And what better place to conduct such an important military experiment than the basement of our apartment building in Brăila?
Our friends Marian and Dănuț were involved in the adventure too. We had chemicals obtained from school and from the company where our father worked, along with test tubes, distilled water and other laboratory equipment.
We had everything we thought we needed to become scientists—or perhaps military inventors.
There was just one small detail we had overlooked.
The military probably knew how to stop producing smoke once it had served its purpose.
We didn't.
The Experiment Begins
We set up our experiment in the basement, excited to see whether we could produce a real smoke screen.
We certainly succeeded.
The reaction began producing smoke, and before long, there was far more of it than we had expected.
It kept coming, filling the basement and spreading through the building.
At first, we must have been delighted with our success. After all, we had managed to reproduce the military technique that had inspired us.
But our enthusiasm quickly turned into panic.
The smoke just kept coming.
We had worked out how to start the chemical reaction, but nobody had thought about how to stop it!
As Adi reminded me recently, we can laugh about it today, but at the time we were desperate. We hadn't considered what we would do if the reaction continued longer than we wanted.
And now it was too late to start thinking about that.
Our brilliant military operation was getting completely out of hand.
The Building Is on Fire!
Soon, the smoke attracted the attention of our neighbors, who understandably thought there was a fire somewhere in the building.
Meanwhile, we had retreated into our basement storage unit, locked the door, opened the windows and waited for the situation to improve.
It was no longer quite as much fun being a scientist.
We could hear the commotion outside, but we certainly weren't eager to step out and explain what had happened.
Then we heard a familiar voice.
It was our father.
He approached the locked door and quietly asked:
“Are you guys in there? Are you okay?”
We assured him that we were all right.
Of course, Dad knew—or had already figured out—what was going on.
After all, he had supplied some of the chemicals and equipment we had asked for.
Without realizing it, he had become an accomplice in our great scientific adventure.
And that put him in a rather awkward position.
How could he give us a proper scolding when he had unknowingly helped make the whole thing possible?
If ever there was a moment for the famous line from Apollo 13, this was it.
“Dad, we have a problem!”
Unfortunately, our father wasn't Mission Control, and we certainly weren't astronauts.
We were just four boys in a basement in Brăila, surrounded by the consequences of our own brilliant idea.
An Experiment We Never Forgot
Eventually, the smoke cleared, and our basement returned to normal.
Our experiment had certainly demonstrated that we could produce a smoke screen. What it had also demonstrated was that four enthusiastic young scientists should probably think about how an experiment is going to end before deciding to begin it.
Years later, Adi reminded me of just how frightened we had been.
We hadn't merely produced more smoke than expected. We had started something without knowing how to stop it.
Today, of course, we can laugh about the whole adventure.
I can still imagine our father standing outside that locked basement door, quietly checking whether we were all right, while knowing that some of the materials responsible for the chaos had come from him.
We had set out to reproduce a military smoke screen that we thought could be useful on a battlefield.
Instead, we managed to convince our neighbors that the building was on fire—and turned our father into an unwilling accomplice.
Our military careers never quite took off.
But as far as smoke screens were concerned, we had proved that we could produce one.
Stopping it was another matter entirely!
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