Naked Fire Starter
Once, in the dim misty days of my 2nd year of uni, I once set a rug on fire.

T'was an Indian, or Persian rug, belonging to my mother and father. I was gearing up for another night of unsuccessful and frankly pathetic attempts at pulling, and part of the ritual was the shower. Being spangley and smelling like a teenager who just discovered the POWER OF AFTERSHAVE.
So off I toddle to the shower, and have a nice long hot shower, and return to my room.

Now my student house was freezing, so I left my gas fire on, to warm it so I returned to a warm and lovely room.

The rug, for your information, was in front the very old gas fire.

Now, I had not noticed the rug had crept up to the air intake of the gas fire. It had been happily cooking for the ½ hour shower.

I wandered in, looked at the fire, thought “Burning a bit orange, I’ll move the rug, perhaps it needs more air”. So I moved it, and lo! T’was all a-flame, and burning merrily. Burning wool smells horrid.

I was thus confronted by a burning rug, in my towel. Do I run? Do I use my towel to beat the flame back?

So Naked I beat the flames. I could not call for help, but I won. The Rug was saved, and all my housemates knew about it was the smell of burning wool. I did not need to run into the winter cold nekkid, my modesty was saved, and all people said about me was that I burned whole sheep.
(SirVile, Wed 3 Mar 2004, 22:11, Reply)