Christ, how did I forget this one?
I'm still in bed, but the spouse is up. I hear him wandering through the house, and then he comes in to see if I'm awake.

'Do you know where the long lighter is? The one we use for the fire?'

Er, yes. . .why?

'Well, there's no hot water. I think the water heater has stopped working; there must be a leak or something.'

It's happened before, so why has the repair company not been called?

'I think I'll try to relight the pilot first and see if that works.'

Wait. You think there's a leak in our gas water heater. And you want a lighter. Full of lighter fluid. That makes flames. Like fuck am I going to let this line of thinking continue.

I got out of bed, called in someone who knew what they were doing and had the thing repaired. And yes, the repairman confirmed that had my darling yet poor-at-planning-ahead spouse gone on with his plan, he'd probably have blown up something important -- like himself, and/or part of our house. Good thing he decided not to use that engineering degree after all.
(louveciennes , Volvospotter, Sat 14 Feb 2009, 22:17, Reply)