Fart Out Cold 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
When I was in my mid teens I played soccer for a small club in my home town in Germany. In my team was this guy who we called Benny. Benny was very confident of himself - actually, it would not really be possible to live up to the reputation he made up for himself.
One day after a game - we had just come out of the showers - Benny had seemingly found that he no longer had anything adequate to bragg about. While we were all getting dressed again he announced that a fart was on its way and requested the attention of all present. He was only wearing underwear when he sat down, lifted one leg, held a burning lighter close to his "exhaust" and - farted. This is not really the kind of action you'd want to get too close to, so I had kept a fair distance. I saw a blue flame that vanished again quickly. After that there was a smell of burning hair and burning cotton. Aparantly Benny had set fire to his underwear, even if only for a second.
Things happened quickly as of then. Benny turned red, screemed, jupmed up and started off running into roughly the direction where the showers were. For some reason - either the still wet floor or an orientation problem - Benny missed that hole in the wall to the showers. He hit the wall, knocked himself out cold and fell on his belly to reveal the scorched hole in his underpants.
By the time our trainer got there Benny was conscious again. He was brought to hospital and treated for concussion. The only problem that arose for Benny was that somehow his parants, our trainer and the hospital staff wanted to know how the accident happened - and Benny wasn't really keen on telling anyone.
I never thought of a scientific investigation on this and now that more than fifteen years have passed I don't think I'll ever start one. The methane expunged from his body was lit by the fire. I doubt however that this short flame would have been enough to also light his pants. My guess is that Benny just got a little too close with his lighter, which certainly doesn't make him look any brighter (nice rhyme). Although Benny did not suffer any permanent damage from this incident, he is a candidate for doing dumb things that might just get out of control.
Submitted on 05/16/2002
Submitted by:
Christian Baer
Reference:
personal account
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