When I was 8 or 9 years old I used to see my dad using the vaccum cleaner at the BBQ. Being just a nipper I naturally thought he was vaccuming up stuff. So after a dinner of charred hotdogs and corn on the cob that my dad cooked I was told to clean the coals out of the grill and put them in a pail of water so they would go out. No problem I dragged the charcoal grill over to the porch, plugged in the vaccum and sucked up all the coals. Now the result when you drag all that fresh air thru a vaccum hose across hot coals is almost immediate. The vaccum was sitting on the porch, which is made of wood attached to the wooden house. Get the picture? Luckily All this is next to the tap and water hose. The vaccum started to smoke wildly so instead of just tossing it onto the lawn I stood it up then opened it to squirt water into it. 8-9 year olds are clever. As I undid the clips I burnt my hand and jerked it away. The vaccum falls over spreading the coals all over the porch. If that hose wasn't right there we would have lost the house. Turns out that my dad was using the vaccum in reverse, blowing the coals to get them started faster
NOT TO SUCK THEM UP YOU IDIOT!!! . ( works really well by the way ) I ruined my moms brand new vaccum and the porch deck always carried the reminders of that day.
My Bro In Law had a great fire pit made from the drum of an old washing machine. It had numerous holes drilled all around the bottom for ventilization and worked great. But it had gotten old and rusty and needed replacing . I was at the appliance repair store and noticed an abundance of old metal dryer drums in a pile behind the store and bummed one off of the guy. Take all you want says he. Yahoo I grab two , one for myself and one for My Bro. We travel the 28 miles to his country retreat, I haul the drum out of my truck and roll it over to him. Yahoo, we remove the old fire pit and install the new one. It has no vent holes because we didn't have time and it was getting dark out. No matter he will drill some tomorrow. Its getting cold and a bit windy out so we load it up with some nice split birchwood he had. I never do this but his usuall method of lighting the campfire is to pour several cupfulls of gasoline on the wood flip in a match and let er rip. Swoosh and the night sky is lit up like a roman candle as the wood catches fire. Usually works. However his match kept going out in the wind. After about 4 or 5 matches I get my waterproof never go out emergency matches from the truck and hand him one already lit. By now everyone is sitting on lawn chairs around the as yet unlit bonfire. He tosses the match into the pit. Kaboom the now fully vaporized gasoline with nowhere to go because there is no air draw due to no vent holes, explodes with a huge bang. Throwing large splits of wood all over the yard and knocking us both on our asses. One of the spectators actually got hit in the forehead with a small log obtained a small cut and a headache. The two of us both spent that summer with bruised egos and without eyebrows.
My other Bro-in-law Lyle arrived at my Sisters party well into his cups.
Dinner was over and My sister Linda asked him to turn off the BBQ in the back yard. We all went into the house because it was getting cold outside. Lyle is one who likes to turn the burners to the limit and burn off the grates Instead of simply cleaning them. He cranks the thing as high as it will go, grunts with satisfaction for a job well done then staggers into the house forgetting of course all about turning it up instead of off like he was asked to do. An Hour later we are all going out the front door to Our respective homes when Lyle, far drunker now, comes charging in thru the back door yelling FIRE! FIRE! EVERYBODY GET OUT! We all rush out onto the front lawn, Lyle yelling that the whole back of the house is on fire call 911. One of the neighbours had already called because moments later the street was filled with firefighters and flashing trucks. They drag a hose around the back and hose down the BBQ then shut off the natural gas line to it. We are all on the neighbours front lawn shivering our butts off when the fire chief walks over with a charred hunk of blackened debris that was what was left of the 7 lb roast that had been left inside the bbq on the warming rack. Anybody recognize this he says. No damage except a dank smoky smell on the back patio for about 1/2 the summer. The house was never in danger as the bbq is 3 feet from the wall. But to a drunk all that smoke must have meant fire. Lyle's ego took quite a hit over that one. Linda's reasoning had been that the leftover roast is in the bbq which was on low will be okay for an hour or so as the thing cools down and when the guests are gone she will go out and rescue it to put in the fridge for sammies the next day.
Lyle had never even opened the lid to check.
It was really really funny, I know this because the Firemen all got such a huge chuckle out of it.
Years later I now see the humor in these three incidents.
