When I was young...
A sunny Sunday afternoon was punctuated by the need to fix the curtains in my room. This meant that the net curtains were down, and seeing as my room faced south and was therefore sunny almost all the time, it was quite bright.

Now, my now deceased grandfather had recently given me a magnifying glass. It was a thing of beauty; polished brass handle and frame, crystal clear glass only marred by a chip in it, but this somehow added to the splendour.
I could spend hours with my magnifying glass, looking at dirt to make it bigger, pretending I was an ace detective, finding small lost items and so on. One thing I didn't know of though, was its ability to focus light into a heated beam.

So there I was, lying on my stomach, checking through my magnifying glass, when I noticed a strange occurrence when it was under strong light. I adjusted the angling of it so that the light had become a small dot. Thinking nothing of it, I turned to ask my mother a question (for she was the one fixing curtains). When I turned back the carpet was on fire.

Now, it was a very small fire, so I got up and stamped on it, extinguishing it. However, the smoke was thick, and I desperately tried to disperse it with a wave of my hand, before my mother noticed. I looked round for something to cover the scorch mark with, but to my dismay everything was too big or too small. I settled for sitting on it and forcing out a fart to cover the smell of smoke. The next 20 minutes were perhaps some of the most uncomfortable of my life, and as my mother left the room, content with her chores, I was sure she shot me a glance that boil lead.

The carpet was removed barely two years later when redecorating. I haven't set fire to this latest one so far.
( Lightguy hail satan, Tue 8 Nov 2005, 15:58, Reply)