Another "blowing myself up" story
Just to join in with the current theme:

As a lad, 12 years old or so, I wanted to build model rockets, but such things were illegal in the UK. So like many others here, it seems, I improvised: stripping firework rockets down to the bare motors, and building models to fly with them. This naturally left lots of stars and other pyrotechnic effects left over.

So this one time I was working on a fuse, but my lighter was nearly dying. So I grabbed an empty plastic tub to act as a draught-shield. Unfortunately, the tub I grabbed, stuck my hand into and flicked the lighter in turned out to be full of coloured stars, which promptly went up, removing my eyebrows and much of the top layer of skin on my hand, and filling the house with acrid smoke.

Just as I was reeling from that, my folks called me into the front room because the film we had previously arranged to watch together was starting. So I had to watch the whole thing pretending that I hadn't just set fire to my hand, not reacting in any way to the pain.

I did go on to build working model rockets. Then I got a girlfriend and lost interest. Now I'm long-married, I'm thinking of taking it up again...
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 10 Aug 2012, 12:05, 1 reply)

Had to be done:
Another "blowing myself up" story
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Mon 13 Aug 2012, 16:46, closed)