My cool adventure

I decided to replace the upper and lower radiator hoses the other day. The old soft swollen ones looked like they were just waiting for the right time to burst. I started with the upper hose because it looked the easiest to get to. This prooved to be untrue when I found that I am not tall enough to reach into the engine compartment. So, standing on a box I was able to replace the upper with no problem and only small amounts of coolant dripping on the floor. The lower hose prooved to be easier to get to after all. This truck has a ton of clearance so laying on my back I can easily see and reach anything on the underside. I started by loosening both of the hose clamps and prying the radiator side loose from its home. I decided to not use the drain on the bottom of the radiator since all of the fluid was going to come out anyways and it might as well come out fast as possible so I had a 5 gallon bucket ready. After a few minutes of fighting with it I decided to just slice the end of the hose to make it looser and hopefully come off with no trouble. Bad choice! I created a fan shaped geyser of antifreeze that was expelling fluid faster than I thought possible. The spray was wider than my buckets' opening which caused fluid to leak all over the place, my hands, the floor, my tool-tray. the bucket was filling fast and I was looking forward to it stopping when my hands slipped! The bucket fell on its side and sent three gallons of green chemicals flowing across my in-laws garage. Trish, who was taking pictures of the process snagged some old shirt rags I had and threw them at the mess. Then she said "well, I'm done here" and made her escape before the growing pool of coolant reached her socks. I was stuck holding the bucket beneath the still spewing truck when the pool soaked through my sweatshirt and caused me to flinch and drop the bucket again letting the remaining gallon or so join the rest on the floor. I decided to just set the bucket down and let the rest drain mostly into it so I could concentrate on the flood. The geyser stopped with only 3 inches of fluid in the bottom of the bucket. FAIL. I felt like Lucille Ball when she was working on an assembly line that got backed up and everything she did made the problem worse and worse.
After all that though and a ton of cleanup I finally got the new hoses on pretty simply and refilled the system with a 50/50 water/antifreeze mix. Note to self: USE THE DRAIN PLUG!!!!