I was in my early thirties, newly blind and eager to prove to the world that I could do just about everything I set my mind to. Of course that would call for a person to have a mind. But anyway, I had a toilet that was leaking where the water line connected to the toilet. I decided to repair it. So I turned off the water and disconnected the line. Ah, it had some of that waxed string in the threads to assist in making the line secure. I used to have some, but for the life of me I couldn't recall where it had gotten to.
Never mind that, I got a spool of string and a chunk of paraffin wax. I decided that I could soften the wax in a pan on the stove, so I set it up and went back to taking the toilet apart. Then I heard a crackle. I jumped up and ran to the kitchen. The wax was crackling and spluttering. Naturally I had not bothered to put the pan in a second pan of water. I turned off the stove burner. And then I did the second dumb thing. I picked up the pan. It burst into flames with a poof. I'm suddenly holding a blazing torch. so I tossed it into the sink. That was my third mistake. The flames instantly caught the frilly window curtains on fire. I thought that I had a five pound bag of salt on the shelf next to the stove, but when I pulled it out it turned out to be flour. I ripped open the sack and dumped the entire bag onto the flaming mess and then turned on the water and pulled the curtains down into the sink. It's a wonder that the flour dust didn't burst into flame, too.
After that I sat down and just shook for about an hour before cleaning up the mess.
Then I walked to the hardware store and bought a new roll of waxed string.
Curious Carl
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