Practical application of science

Sore throat. Headache. Slight fever. Sneeze. Running nose. Typical symptom of cold since yesterday. But how many years has it been since I caught cold last time? Apart from the frozen shouldr, I got stronger as I grow older it seems.
When I was a boy, I was weak. I missed school many days a year; mostly from illness and sometimes from...truancy. I loved the feeling of staying in cozy bed on a freezing winter day, when other students sat in the cold classroom listening to the boring lectures. Compared with this heavenly experience, illness was like a blessing given to me from God. It was so good that I came to want to create this blessing myself.
The problem was how to make my mother believe that I was ill. It was easy if I had a fever. Ok, all I had to do was to raise the thermometer reading. I hit upon an idea. Friction. In science class, I had just learned about friction and heat produced by it. Yes this is it. I rubbed the head of the thermometer with my sheet under futon. At first the reading stayed at 35℃. I rubbed it harder on the sheet. After some more trial, I succeeded finally. The reading showed 40. I lowered the reading to 38℃ or something and showed it to my mother. She was worried and told me to go back to bed.
I felt guilty but, getting a taste of success, I did it several times after that until an accident happened. One cold morning, I did not feel like going to school. So I brought the thermometer and rubbed it hard with the sheets. Somehow I felt pressed and I did it harder than usual. I heard a "clink" sound under futon. When I saw it it was broken. I overdid it. The temperature exceeded its limit of 43 ℃ and kind of exploded by thermal expansion of mercury. Small balls of mercury were rolling all over my sheet. I told my mother that the thermometer "somehow" broke. I could not tell her the real reason. She changed the sheet, disposed of the scattered mercury and left my room saying "Have a good rest." Since then I have never tried this trick.
At the age of ten, It might have been the first moment that I realized that the science was actually useful to us... But not for ill use