She's dead now...
...and for the last 15 years of her life we were not in contact (my choice), but when I was a spakky 10 year old and we lived in a large, linoleum-floored apartment in Famagusta/Varosha, Cyprus, my step-mother would complain bitterly at the amount of washing and polishing the floors required.

That's because when they'd go out and leave us kids alone without company, I would get the large canister of lighter fluid from the cabinet over the fridge and create on the floor the largest and most elaborate patterns I could imagine. Up and down, and round and round, in long and separate strands. They had to remain separate, otherwise phase two of the endeavour - when I lit one end of the flammable liquid - would be ruined.

I'd watch the near-invisible bluish tinged flame race up the corridor and down again, then around the living room, avoiding the rugs and other furniture, before heading up the corridor again, around the kid's bedroom, into the bathroom, where it would spiral to extinction.

I've never told anyone in my family this. My parents never knew, and my younger brother doesn't remember anything of our time there. I'd like to put my hand up (IN THE AIR - sick people!) and claim full responsibility. It was me and me alone. And the devil that made me do it.

22 feet, the corridor measured. I'd get a good 15 or 16 tracks across it too.
(Large Hardon Collider Bah Bloody Humbug, Sun 29 Aug 2010, 0:17, 2 replies)

You were just arson around.

( flake has nothing against your right leg, Sun 29 Aug 2010, 15:14, closed)

And the moral of the story is...
It's fun to play with fire, kids! :-)
(Vinnie Strokes Got bummed on, Sun 29 Aug 2010, 15:34, closed)