Playing with fire
I went to a posh boarding school, and one saturday, whilst sat in my bedroom, the fire alarm went off. The proper drill on these occasions is to wait a minute and then wander slowly out, knowing full well that somebody has set the timer on the toaster a bit too high and then wandered off and got distracted and the alarm will probably stop before you get a chance to evacuate.

On this occasion the alarm continued, so I opened my door to see flames in the bathroom opposite. This gave me an instant hit of adrenaline and I rushed to grab the fire extinguisher and put out the fire. Somebody had set fire to one of those hanging down roll of towel dispenser thingies and it had flared up quite well!

Having extinguished the fire, I ran downstairs and outside to where everyone was congregated to be ticked off the list. When I stepped through the door, the adrenaline was still pumping, and I was shaking slightly. As soon as I took a few steps away from the building though, for some reason I just couldn't stop laughing, largely from relief. This did not look good in the eyes of the housemaster or any other teachers who were there.

I spent a lot of time in trouble at school, so bursting out in hysterical laughter immediately after a fire that was clearly started by somebody was not a good idea!! It took weeks of convincing people that it wasn't me before anyone was willing to believe me! In the end it was accepted that I really wasn't stupid enough to set things on fire indoors, and if I were going to take up a career in arson, starting a fire outside my own door was an unlikely starting point!
( more balanced than jeremy beadle It wasn't me..., Sun 25 Jul 2010, 16:06, Reply)