deodorant bombs
When I was in my early teens we used to start fires. Soon, the average pyre composed of a few chewing gum wrappers and whatever litter could be scrounged from the locale, seemed somewhat lame. So we quickly qraduated to propellants, after being inspired by the bond film when sean canary roasts that deadly (non deadly) snake with a cigar and after shave.

Soon running around with a home-made flamethrower also became a bit tiresome. I can reliably inform b3tans that it takes around 4 minutes for a lynx deodorant can to explode in a moderately small fire.

How is this dicing with death? Well we were amusing ourselves in the local woodland and the lynx can had been in for a minute or three when a woman with a dog walked past our fire, a couple of metres away, probably well within blast radius of said lynx can. It seemed like an eternity as she slowly ambled past and we. said. nothing. Absolutely nothing, just frozen in mute shame and utter fear that the can might explode.

Fortunately she was out of sight before long and then one of the less adventurous of us decided he had had enough. "I'm going to get rid of it" he said and promptly went up to the fire to kick the can out.

Bizarrely we couldn't move to protect a (probably) fine and upstanding citizen but we managed to move to protect one of our own. Afterwards and to this day I don't remember if it was me or someone else, but one of us flew through the air and high-tackled him to the ground a split second before the can exploded.

That was a moment of epiphany for some of us, myself included, and the fire was promptly stamped out and we walked home in silence. I think I owe a lot to the woman with the dog as looking back I was on the cusp of becoming a real scally.

Never made a fire without purpose since and I haven't used lynx deodorant either.
(mersault, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 12:39, 4 replies)

and this
is the reason my fella is blind in one eye. Nasty.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 12:42, closed)

woah
That is unlucky. I came out of my early teens with my worst mishap being a severe concussion event, but I reckon I had a karma-balance seriously in the red...
(mersault, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 13:00, closed)

Yeah
he didn't even do it to himself - he was working and someone threw a bag of rubbish on the fire. Aerosol shot out and hit him in the eye.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 13:11, closed)

Nice...
very nice...
( SpankyHanky, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 13:03, closed)