ive just been re-reading some tales of vernons, thought they must be worth sharing again
vernon said:
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I once lit a rocket in the kitchen because my son dared me to.
Not one to refuse a dare I lit the fuse thinking that I could douse it in the sink full of cold water that I'd spotted just after the dare was issued.
I duly lit the fuse and enjoyed the look of panic on my son's face - this was no ordinary rocket but one of those big star bursts.
I dunked the rocket in the water and the fuse continued burning - the look of panic was now on my face.
I ran to the back door to throw the rocket out but it was locked and the key wasn't in the lock.
During the lifetime that flashed in front of my eyes - I opened every cupboard door and oven looking for a place to lodge the rocket but the fear of the consequences from my wife was greater than my fear of the injuries from the pyrotechnic. The scene was like one of those Ealing comedies running around in circles desperately hoping for a miracle solution....
In the last few seconds before 'lift off' I found the back door key and managed to release the rocket outside.
It hovered and exploded directly overhead about sixty feet up.
My son was less than complimentary about my intelligence. For once I had to agree with him
and
Some time ago I retold the incendiary tale of me lighting a rocket in the kitchen and the ensuing mayhem when things went pear shaped.
Yesterday witnessed another insane but milder incendiary incident which was avoidable of pre-existing knowledge had been recalled and deployed.
After the evening meal, I was sitting at the computer desk typing away and miding my own business when two of my offspring improvised a game of table tennis using their hands and a ping pong ball. After several glancing blows to my body I suffered a direct hit to my eye and decided to end the game forever.
I seized the ping pong ball with one hand and retrieved a chef,s blow torch from the back of the desk, lit the torch and then used the flame to ignite the ping pong ball - mistake number one. The celluloid is very flammable.
I succeeded in blowing out the flames but my smugness was premature. The ping pong ball spontaneously re-ignited - mistake number two - I'd forgotten that very flammable should have read extremely flamable.
Good bye smug grin, hello wide eyed panic preceding a panic driven juggling of a fiery chunk of plastic until the heat resistance of my epidermis was compromised and I dropped the burning remains on the not so cheap woollen carpet and stood on them to put them out. Lifting my foot the extinguished remains re-ignited. Mistake number three - extremely flammable should be replaced with extremely f'kin flammable.
Having failed to be educated by mistakes one to three I stood on the burning remains again and again for mistkes four and five until the fourth stamp successfully extinguished the flames.
My kids were in agony from laughing, my wife was in pain from screaming at me and I am currently living in Coventry being unable to apologise without laughing.
The damage to the carpet has proved to be minimal with a mild scorching only just visible.
Thing is, I knew how rapidly celluloid from ping pong balld burned - I'd just forgotten/failed to make the right connections before I embarked on the trip to internal exile.
For those who want to explore the flammability of ping pong balls a tad more safely and impress the offspring with the effects:
1, cut a ping pong ball into small pieces.
2. Wrap the pieces in aluminium foil.
3. Roast the foil with a match or a lighter.
4. When smoke emerges from the foil drop it onto a saucer and watch the device fill a small room with smoke and the smell of wintergreen - your very first smoke bomb.
Shame I'd forgotten about the smoke bomb. Its recollection might have saved the day yesterday
Maybe not
