Oh, come on. Pyromania is such an ugly word.
I wrote once before about how I disposed of all of the English Leather gift sets I consistently received for Christmas from aunts and uncles. After the novelty of stinking up the place wore off, I eventually realized that I could fill up the porcelain soap dish with it, light it, and watch a cool, even, blue flame for a few minutes (and stink up the place).
Then I got a stepbrother. Chris and I had two working parental units, so we were home alone a lot. One summer morning, when we were taking a break from teaching the neighborhood children arts and crafts and reading our Bibles, we got to playing with one of those grand old standbys—the improvised flamethrower (you know, with a can of hair spray and a disposable lighter?). We burned this and that in the garage floor—paper, little bits of wood, and so forth. We observed the difference between spraying down and spraying into the air. Weren’t we just the little experimenters?
After we got bored with the Aqua Net, we decided to try other things. WD-40 with the red straw in place made much more of a stream of flame than a cone. Ever see a photo of soldiers in a PBR on the Mekong spraying napalm from a hose? Pam worked even better than hair spray, and the fire had a cool granular effect to it.
Then we rolled out the monster. ‘Course, we didn’t know it was the monster before we did it, but it became the undisputed champion.
With an eerily muted whoomp, a small release of Niagara spray starch produces an enormous cloud of yellow-orange flame. I mean, that sumbitch was out four feet from the can. I was shocked (and relieved) I didn’t scorch the drywall in the garage. We decided our luck was officially pressed, put everything away, and didn’t play with an improvised flamethrower again until we decided to burn a Ouija board to see if we could hear it scream. (Nada.) Our careers ended shortly thereafter.
Fortunately for dumbass little boys everywhere, Darwin naps some days.
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FYI, different flavor coffee creamers burn into different colors when thrown into an open flame. hazelnut is green, amaretto is orangish-red. rosemary burns with a great aroma….uh, there must have been something on pecanwood that gave us this proclivity!
God, this is so funny and so true. Several years ago, Len & I were cleaning up the property on which our house now sits. After my Dad’s death, we rented out the old house for a bit and then the property was just empty. A big ice storm came through and big mess resulted. We had a lot of work. Of course, being in the county, most of that involved lots and lots and lots of burning!!!
My son would get so excited when I’d tell him it was time to go out in the country and clean up. His eyes would light up with a strange orangey tint as he imagined all the wonderful things he would get to throw into the big bonfire!
Thanks for the laugh and the memories!
I worked my way through high school and college at the local Winn Dixie. Keep in mind this was way back when we could have incinerators to get rid of the cardboard boxes after stocking the shelves. Anyway, we burned just about everything that would fit through the door. On interesting thing I discovered was flour is extremely flammable when in airborne powder form. Try this some time. Find a large open flame like a camp fire or something. Place a pound of flour on a flat surface about 3 feet off the ground. With a large broom, quickly sweep the flour into the air over the fire. We are talking HUGE fire ball. Nuclear weapons have nothing on this stuff. Now do it in an enclosed space like an incinerator and watch the flames shoot 15 – 20 feet out the door. WAY COOL!
Bigdave: I’d have never guessed that on flavored creamers. I forgot to mention Mario and I setting little fires in glass bowls, using the matches my dad had collected from here and there. Maybe there was something to the geography of it.
Terri: Glad to spread combustible cheer.
BB_FAN: I actually did know that about airborne flour, though I only learned it very recently. Seems like I read a news story or something. Pleased to see you survived; you were definitely set up for grander experiments than was I!
Ever notice how 90-95% of all Darwin Award winners are men? Testosterone must be a bitch.
I’ll see your Pam and raise you this: Bottles, gallon of gasoline, cloth rags, roof of the movie theater, nervous assistant manager/projectionist, scorched Cubs hat in the parking lot.
Die Cubs, die.
Cheryl: This isn’t the biggest way it’s a bitch, believe me. 🙂
BamaDan: I definitely give. Between BB_FAN’s incinerator and your Molotov cocktails, I’m hopelessly outflamed.
My last comment on this section. One mantra that I learned while rotating through the burn unit as a medical student:
“There is no such thing as a smart burn.”
Well, yeah, but it’s easier to empathize with someone who burned himself clumsily cooking than it is a dipshit kid with a can of spray starch and a Bic. 🙂