OK - here is mine. Share yours if you dare.
This is a few years ago. I'd been living in the Midwest for a while and just got transferred back to Georgia. Moved into an apartment for the short run so as to take a look around and see where I wanted to buy. It was a ground floor apartment, with a patio and storage closet facing the parking lot. Had all my tools in the storage closet.
Needed to solder something - - I can't remember what the heck it was; something to do with my boat. It wasn't electrical, it was some sort of boat part I was trying to repair. So I got out the propane torch - the kind you solder pipe with - and screwed it on to the propane can and lit it.
All of the sudden I had fire in places where I didn't want it. Long story made short, I didn't have the torch screwed on to the can tight enough, and propane was spewing out from around the neck of the can and making my hand really warm. Kinda past warm, actually. I found this not only startling, but unpleasant. The smell of hair burning affects me that way, particularly when it is hair that is attached to me. So I toss the torch over the deck railing... right into the shrubbery bed between the patio and the sidewalk.
So now I'm standing on my patio, going into cardiac arrest, looking at this lit propane torch laying in the shrubbery bed getting ready to set the whole damn complex on fire. I can see the news reports in my head. Ignorant hillbilly sets apartment complex on fire. Film at eleven. This ain't gonna do. No way, no how.
While I was vaulting the railing and grabbing for the torch (which was still happily burning just about all over itself), I'm wondering if the thing is going to explode, or what? And just how bad is it going to burn me when I pick it up?
Picked up the torch, spun around in a circle or two, trying to pick a good direction (a tough call when you are standing in the parking lot of the apartments where you live, getting ready to hurl a flaming can of propane), and threw that sucker just about as hard as I could toward a grassy area at the end of the street. Made a pretty good toss, too. Got it all the way past the pavement so it landed in dirt and grass instead of on asphalt. I didn't know what the #$%^ was about to happen, but I figured it was better for it to happen fifty feet away than right there in front of my patio.
The god who looks after damn fools was watching over me that night, in that 1-it was a ground floor apartment, 2-when I threw the torch, the wind snuffed the flame out, 3-apparently nobody saw any of this happen.
I haven't used that torch since. As a matter of fact, I believe I threw it away. It obviously had a curse on it.
OK. That's my confession of the dumbest thing I ever did with a tool. Share yours if you have one that is good for a laugh.
George
This is a few years ago. I'd been living in the Midwest for a while and just got transferred back to Georgia. Moved into an apartment for the short run so as to take a look around and see where I wanted to buy. It was a ground floor apartment, with a patio and storage closet facing the parking lot. Had all my tools in the storage closet.
Needed to solder something - - I can't remember what the heck it was; something to do with my boat. It wasn't electrical, it was some sort of boat part I was trying to repair. So I got out the propane torch - the kind you solder pipe with - and screwed it on to the propane can and lit it.
All of the sudden I had fire in places where I didn't want it. Long story made short, I didn't have the torch screwed on to the can tight enough, and propane was spewing out from around the neck of the can and making my hand really warm. Kinda past warm, actually. I found this not only startling, but unpleasant. The smell of hair burning affects me that way, particularly when it is hair that is attached to me. So I toss the torch over the deck railing... right into the shrubbery bed between the patio and the sidewalk.
So now I'm standing on my patio, going into cardiac arrest, looking at this lit propane torch laying in the shrubbery bed getting ready to set the whole damn complex on fire. I can see the news reports in my head. Ignorant hillbilly sets apartment complex on fire. Film at eleven. This ain't gonna do. No way, no how.
While I was vaulting the railing and grabbing for the torch (which was still happily burning just about all over itself), I'm wondering if the thing is going to explode, or what? And just how bad is it going to burn me when I pick it up?
Picked up the torch, spun around in a circle or two, trying to pick a good direction (a tough call when you are standing in the parking lot of the apartments where you live, getting ready to hurl a flaming can of propane), and threw that sucker just about as hard as I could toward a grassy area at the end of the street. Made a pretty good toss, too. Got it all the way past the pavement so it landed in dirt and grass instead of on asphalt. I didn't know what the #$%^ was about to happen, but I figured it was better for it to happen fifty feet away than right there in front of my patio.
The god who looks after damn fools was watching over me that night, in that 1-it was a ground floor apartment, 2-when I threw the torch, the wind snuffed the flame out, 3-apparently nobody saw any of this happen.
I haven't used that torch since. As a matter of fact, I believe I threw it away. It obviously had a curse on it.
OK. That's my confession of the dumbest thing I ever did with a tool. Share yours if you have one that is good for a laugh.
George