I have a personal account of my own concerning my boyfriend.

A few years ago I agreed to meet a friend for lunch as she was newly pregnant and excited to tell me her news and to generally catch up. My boyfriend did not want to come along and instead was going to work on some art for his university course.

While I was away, he decided he needed some boiled linseed oil, but all he could find at hand was a litre bottle of raw linseed oil. So instead of going to the local hardware store and purchasing some for a few dollars, He decided that he should be able to boil it up on our gas stove in the kitchen without any difficulty. So he proceeded to get out one of my more expensive heavy based stainless steel pots and placed the oil into it. He then ignited the gas stove and placed the pot on the flame.

The linseed oil was taking its time to boil and my boyfriend isnt the smartest cookie in the pack, so he decided to go outside and finish working on some other artwork whilst it boiled.

A short time later he noticed black smoke coming out of the house and being the true idiot that he is he went back into the house to investigate.

On entering the kitchen he was shocked to find the pot of oil on fire and flames reaching upwards melting the rangehood above the stove. As I was telling you he is a real idiot, and thought the best thing to do was to pour water onto it to put it out? Well as you can guess that just made the oil explode upwards and outwards. He then grabbed a large cloth that he had been using paint thinner on and threw that over the rapidly spreading fire. This cloth immediately caught on fire and now flames were reaching the ceiling.

In a panic he picked up the pot of boiling oil (he said he put oven gloves on so he wouldnt get burned?) and rushed it outside, throwing it onto the grass. Luckily for him the grass was really green and kind of long so the oil just burned insitu without spreading further, the kitchen was another matter.

Grabbing one of my better woollen rugs he rushed into the kitchen and finally smothered the flames.

At this point I returned with my friend as we planned to have a quick cup of coffee before she returned home.

I opened the front door and a large cloud of black smoke escaped over our heads. I was so shocked, I called out to my boyfriend and he came into the hallway from the kitchen with this sheepish grin on his face telling me everything was alright!

We all went into the kitchen and I almost fainted, half the kitchen was black with scorch marks, the rangehood had melted down onto the stove, the lino floor had large burn marks in it and bits of woollen rug were spread all over the place.

Needless to say, my friend made a hasty exit saying she had to get home....

I was left with the cleanup. The melted rangehood had caused an electrical short so all the power was out, it was also getting late in the day so it was pretty dark (which hid the true horror of it all).

I rang an electrican immediately to come and sort out the power problem ( at great expense as it was the evening now and on a weekend) and asked my boyfriend what the hell happened.

He then proceeded to tell me about his plan to boil the linseed oil. I asked him well how did it catch on fire? Thats when he admitted that he forgot he had even put the oil on the stove and only remembered when he saw the smoke coming out of the house.

I said incredulously, "dont you know that you never leave oil on the stove as it can catch fire?", he said, "Well now I know, why didnt you tell me that earlier?"

of course I was dumbfounded, as this was from a 32 year old man who had worked in commercial kitchens for several years???

I am really nervous to go out for lunch with friends now and repeatedly tell my boyfriend not to boil any oil on the stove while I am away, to this date he has not made the same mistake again!

In a side note just to let you know how silly he is, we had another fire (not his fault this time as it was an electrical fire in the power box) and I said to him to go across the street to ring the fire brigade whilst I got his son out of the house, he came back and said to me "what is the number?" ???

my response "Triple Zero you idiot!" (we are in australia)

yes I am still with him, otherwise he would have killed himself by accident years ago!

Submitted on 08/18/2005

Submitted by: Karen
Reference:

Copyright © 2005 DarwinAwards.com

Jack said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Ah... Karen? May I seriously suggest that you drop your current boyfriend and move to another town?!? Most ticky boo!!! I'd really hate to see your name come up as a Honorable Mention nominee or even worse, as a injured bystander.

Tracy said:
Neutral: Personal Account
Karen, leave now.... please!!!

Kelly said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
wow, you're one brave lady! Thanks for the really well written story.

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