I accidentally set my son's old Ford on fire last year, the cops had defected it for a variety of minor things (torn carpet, rip in upholstery, and an oil leak) so I spent all day installing a better interior, and the last job was to replace the valve cover gasket, then degrease the engine.
I drove over to the local car-wash, popped the hood, sprayed everything with 2 dollar shop degreaser, (not oven cleaner) then as I was about to hit it with the high pressure gun I thought I better start it first, anyway, I hit the starter, and "FWOOMP"! Up it went! Bugger!
I panicked, slammed the hood shut, only to see flames licking under the bumper, with burning oil dripping onto the concrete floor! What to do? There were no fire-extinguishers that I could see, (why would you need one at a car wash?) so I ran over to the coin operated thingy, but my coins kept just rolling thru! All the while, smoke is coming out from under the Fairlane hood, but no-one else in the car wash seemed to have noticed, "Fark!" "Fark!", I must have sounded like a big fat crow!
Eventually the machine accepted one of my coins, and I selected "streak free rinse", from memory, then ran back to the old Fairlane and after getting the hood open again, managed to douse the fire. Amazingly, there was no discernable damage, all that had burned was the old oil mixed with the degreaser! By this stage I was a sweaty mess, so I took a minute to regain my composure, finished washing the engine, then drove the car over to where my son works.
I told him the whole story, embellished in my favor of course to increase his incredible respect and admiration for me, but he was nonplussed. He just looked at me and said, "But Dad, isn't it insured?" You see, I gave him that car, and although I still loved it, (it was badly damaged by an errant truck driver a couple of months later and "written off" by the insurance company) to him it was just an old car, so he would have preferred the insurance dollars as a deposit on a car that
he wanted, ha ha! Cheers, Terry.
