seanie

I've got a friend I shared a flat with as a student. One Saturday we cooked a big meal, watched a video, drank a bottle of Trawler rum and smoked a few joints. He was and is a bit of a stoner.

It was quite late and we were quite far gone.

He rolled another joint. But his zippo was out of lighter fluid.

So he reached over, got the can, and attempted to fill it up.

However in his condition it was a bit tricky. Fluid went everwhere.

He then sparked his zippo.

Instantly his hands were enveloped in a blue flame.

We both looked at this a little suprised and confused.

After a brief period of reflection he decided to pat his hands on his trousers. His trousers that were soaked with lighter fluid.

So now his hands and his trousers were both on fire.

We again looked at this with suprise and confusion.

After further reflection he picked up the nearest thing to hand to dampen the flames.

A newspaper.

His hands and trousers were no longer alight but the Evening Times was.

He flung it to the floor and stamped the flames out in a rather uncoordinated way.

Leaving a huge melted patch on the crappy nylon carpet.

So the next day we bought a rug.

Rugs are good, m'kay.

Puck

Use Goop or some other brand of hand cleaner to break up the oil before using the steam cleaner!

Thanks for the story, seanie! LOL!

Worked with a quite dim young man once, we were gluing PVC pipe and using a torch to bend said pipe. You know the little cotton ball in the glue can you use to spread the glue? He passed it in front of the torch flame. It caught on fire. He waved it about trying to put out the flaming cotton ball. A big blob of flaming glue flew off and landed...on the crotch of his pants. Whereby he proceeded to slap at his crotch whilst 'dancing' about franticly. Yelling in pain every time his hand slapped his crotch. Poor dumb kid. Never laughed so hard.

seanie

I've superglued my lips together many a time.

But that's another story....

seanie

The suspense is killing me.

The carpet?

seanie

please.....:banghead:

Just Another Infidel

Great story Seanie. Sot of took me for a trip in the way-back machine....

Ya know those little funny rockets you can make with a stick match wrapped in tin-foil (aluminum foil actually)? They normally fly 6 or 8 feet and leave a very entertaining smoke trail. Lots of fun. But take 4 young sailors, mix with generous portions of beer, cheap wine, etc. Add a can of black powder (i.e. gunpowder).

A couple grains of said powder placed in the tin-foil greatly increases the range and smoke generating properties of aforementioned rockets. It also creates a cute little trail sparks. Lots of fun, until one of your drunk buddies fails to replace the cap on the can of powder and leaves the unprotected can directly under the flight path of the miniature rocket.

When the mostly full can of black powder detonated we were initially stunned by the concussion. I vaguely recall a thick layer of smoke clinging under the ceiling. The smoke seemed to just fall down and fill the room in seconds.

We stumbled around in the smoke stamping out small fires before they got larger. We were beginning to laugh about the entire incident, thinking nobody would be the wiser and swearing each other other to secrecy about our "little accident" when the cops arrived, followed closely by the fire department. The cops and firemen could barely contain their amusement as they set up their fans to evacuate the smoke and walked around the house shining their flashlights into all the corners and into our faces. "So let me get this straight, you were doing what?"

As the smoke cleared we realized the explosion had actually blown the picture window clean out of the wall. Pieces of it were later found across the street in the neighbors yards.

The most embarrassing part was,... I had just bought the house from the fire chief a few months before.

JAI

Bree

Wow. After reading all of your stories, somehow I feel much, much better about our sudsy carpet...

We finally stopped scrubbing at the damn suds about two hours into it. The carpet has dried to a sticky, white consistancy - a testimony to the amount of suds still left. We did some calling around and decided to borrow a friend's Kirby vacuum/carpet scrubber instead of renting a supermarket one. Much cheaper <whew>.

I just hope that the dried suds don't collect more dirt than the rest of the carpet. I don't want a black smudge!

Colander of Truth

I say rip up the carpet and lacquer your subfloor!

Very avant-garde!

PopeInTheWoods

Since I once tried to clean my plastic-lensed eyeglasses with acetone, I'm not saying anything.

Andy

Melkor

Okay, call me a complete perv, but I totally misinterpreted the subject of this thread before opening it and reading it.

I am so, so sorry.


Now, to make my post a bit more helpful, I have to recommend purchasing any one of the various small, hand-held models of carpet cleaners out there. My wife and I have two cats that take turns on tag-team hairball vomiting (and they seem to do it intentionally on the carpet... cat: "Holy crap! I have to yakk... better run for the living room!"), and without the little mini-shampoo-er we'd be screwed. They don't cost much, and even if you don't have to use them as regularly as we do, the next time you have a stain to get out or a spill on the carpet to clean up, it really does make it worthwhile to buy one, in my opinion.