"how about we light up that lamp at the end of the yard and try and shoot out the flame?" we have done this activity before, and with some success, but there was a pair of small obstacles in our path that kept us from lighting it.

1. we had no idea how to properly light an oil lamp.

2. we had no oil. BUt my best friend is a rather inventive type. This creative spirit is most evident in his passion for radio controlled cars-ones that are very large and run on nitromethane fuel.

So, without a second of hesitation, he ran into his garage and emerged with two things in his hands: a squeeze bottle filled with nitromethane, and a BBQ lighter. i had a feeling from that exact second things would not go too well.

he doused the rope wick of the lamp with the fuel, and light it up. woosh. the lamp was ablaze. as soon as he was out of the line of fire, we began shooting relentlessly, until the lamp stopped burning. which happened rather quickly. he repeated his earlier course of actions, with our two other friends in tow, watching the lighting. the lamp was again ablaze, and they were fascinated by how the nitro burned. it formed little puddles of blue and yellow fire on the table, which i have to admit, looked rather cool. since the fire was dying, he squirted another dose of nitro onto the lamp...which was still barely burning. The flame raced up the stream and into the spout, ultimately causing an explosion in the bottle, spraying burning nitro onto the trellace behind the table, and on everyone who was unfortunate enough to be closeby. i was the only one who decided to hang back and not partake in this pyromania. the fire was put out by a friend with a hose, and ultimately, the only casualty of this whole sequence of error was the bottle and the ivy plants which entwined the trellace.

when i went to plink again the next day in his backyard, the ivy was a dead brown color, and the table was ever so slighly singed.

we swore to never speak of this again.

Submitted on 08/17/2006

Submitted by: Quintin Pruett
Reference: personal; august of 2005

Copyright © 2006 DarwinAwards.com

James said:
Neutral: Personal Account
Thanks, Quintin! This was definitely an amusing enough PA to share with the readers! My guess is that you were probably younger than our usual minimum age when this happened, but we're lenient on PA's! Whatever the case, the sheer panic when that fuel bottle exploded was alone probably worth the price of admission, so to speak! :-)

Sheryl said:
Neutral: Personal Account
I feel sorry for the ivy! But seriously, I liked the story. As James says, I can imagine the panic when everything went whoosh. Has it taught any of you a lesson? :)

Fitzroy said:
Neutral: Personal Account
Yeah, I have to admit that the lack of injury here has me feeling some reservation. Yet it was an entertaining story, and certainly more than property could have been damaged but for random quirks of the explosion. I'll join the neutral chorus because deep down I do believe readers will enjoy it.

Jorge said:
Neutral: Personal Account

Graham said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
We all do silly things in our youth and I can picture this one clearly! Amazing how we simply do not see danger, until we experience it.

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