Eyebrows – and how they ‘Went!’

Ξ May 14th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Mumble, Silly |

As it was sunny at the weekend – and given that one should apparently ‘make hay’ at such times – we did some gardening.

English gardening is traditionally all about weeding, topiary, pruning, and dead-heads [nothing to do with Blackbird Leys]. Anyway, gardening here is a bit different.

Using an appropriate array of beefy tools we sawed, trimmed, sawed again, amputated, leveled – and yet despite all our efforts, nothing really seemed to change. The hegemony [sic] that continued to engulf us seemed to grow as we watched!

Finally, and being a petrol-head, I said, ‘I know, I’ll burn it!!’ ‘Make hay’, bah! Let’s ‘make ashes’ instead!

Thirty minutes later found me liberally sprinkling 4-star on the stuff like Lewis Hamilton showers Pol Roger!

Now, I once read that there’d been some sort of additive – um, added to modern petrol to make it less explosive/feisty, and, always being happy to educate the less knowledgeable, I openly pronounced on this belief whilst simultaneously offering a match to the petrol-laden mass – about a third of our garden I reckon!

In less than a second, two things happened: a VERY bright and all-consuming orange and red light surrounded me, and there was a sound [if one can call such a thing a ‘mere’ sound], WOOSH it went**. Oh yeah, I also remember that the light was f***ing hot!

After I’d jumped about a bit, and then stopped to appreciate the 20ft ball of flame rising up over our house; I noticed that there was a very strong smell of burnt hair mixing in with those of petrol and smoke. Judging by the looks on the faces of my companions – who were all looking at me – it was obvious that I’d done myself a bit of damage.

My eyebrows don’t really exist anymore, and what remains of my hair – which was bleached white – is now a sort of Burnt Almond colour.

I must have dreamt the stuff about the additive, or else ‘old fashioned’ petrol was entirely lethal.   SO, just like the modern stuff then!

** Perhaps WOOOOOOMP would be a better description!