Fire!We were all in my aunt's kitchen at the back of her huge rambling Victorian house. I was only small and had wandered off to go to the loo, but given up after finding the hall full of smoke. "That was quick," my mum said after a few minutes. "Yes - it's all smoky," I replied.
I've never seen adults move so fast.
So, like my cousin who'd managed to set fire to the roof, tell us your fire stories.
(
chthonic, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 9:11)
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Like most of the boys...and, it would seem. far too many of the girls (aren't you meant to be the sensible ones?) I've torched my fair share of possessions, other people's possessions, property...
One particularly decent fireball was the result of being a pretty good chemist at school. It was the winter term, the rugby pitch was covered in snow about a foot thick and I'd been pilfering aluminium from the metalwork shop. I also managed to half-hinch a goodly amount of Sodium Hydroxide. Now the astute among you will remember mixing the two produces vast amounts of Hydrogen.
I thought I'd make a little (ok, huge) balloon, lifted by said reaction. Needless to say, the steel container I used to hold the reagents was far too heavy to lift. Though the massive plastic bags I used to form the balloon part of the contraption did full and sort of hang there, tethered by the strings that attached them to the steel pot.
So I thought "Sod it", and flicked a match at it. It went... nowhere, you see the match hit the bag and melted through but there wasn't enough oxygen around to cause ignition, too much hydrogen, y'see.
I turned around to go, thoroughly dejected, when I was thrown to the ground by the most almighty fireball you have ever seen. My hair was singed, I felt I'd been punched in the back by a giant, and there was no snow for about a 10m radius around where the steel pot lay, no remnants of the plastic bags remained.
I got in a lot of trouble, again.
(, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 12:45, Reply)
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