Cowabunga Dude 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
Personal account:
At age 14, I had a fascination with fire. One summer afternoon I started to explore it in a stupid (of course) manner by starting fire to my parents driveway using gasoline. This of course graduated to me driving my bicycle through the flames in emulation of "Evil Kenivle". The tires picked up the gasoline and flames thus creating a daring visual effect. This impressed my two goofy friends so much, they proceeded to egg me on towards my next death-defying stunt.
I felt I had thought the entire thing through. I would have a pressurized garden hose on site for one of my two "friends" to wield after the stunt was performed. I then proceeded to douse my jeans in gasoline, and light them. Now as a kid we are all told to stop, drop, and roll if we are ever on fire, however, in this case that merely accomplished a flaming lawn. I suddenly realized that when I stopped moving I became extremely uncomfortable. It was then that I jumped up and commenced what my friends described as an Irish Jig. Whatever it was, it elicited hysterics out of my "friends". They found that between their guffaws, they no longer had the capacity to wield the garden hose to my rescue. Seeing that an end to my situation was not forthcoming, I put my mind into overdrive.
I ran for the aboveground pool in our back yard and jumped in.
This action certainly relieved my immediate problem, however it then created quiet a different one.
I now found myself submerged under a sheet of flaming gasoline, which was starting to melt the pool liner around the edges. There was nothing to do but wait it out. I didn’t have to wait long, for the pool liner is an integral part of the stability of an aboveground pool.
I next found myself participating in the, then unfamiliar in the mid-west, sport known as body surfing. The pool had let loose and I had completely flooded both my parents yard and the yard of one of my now not-so-smiling, astonished friends. I only suffered minor burns from the fire, but the parental flames were quite another story.
The moral of the story: Fire + Gasoline + Stupidity = $9000 repair bill.
Submitted on 02/11/02
Submitted by:
Brian Rusk
Reference:
Copyright © 2002 DarwinAwards.com
|
