Gavin Foster has given up working on cars and bikes in his garage . . . for good reason!
Occasionally, we all forget stuff on the stove, allowing things to get a little smoky, but that’s not the end of the world! When Jenny came home with two big, expensive fire extinguishers after my most recent such incident, I knew this was more than mild irritation about a blackened pot and a smelly kitchen. She was exploiting her God-given right to rub it in that I once set both my car and my motorcycle alight in two separate incidents within a single week.
I was alone at home when I decided to fix the car’s carburettor one Sunday afternoon – Jenny and the kids were spending a few days with her family in Port Elizabeth. The Chevair stood half in and half out the garage while I fettled it, and things went swimmingly until I gave the gas pedal a couple of hefty pumps to prime the carburettor, and turned the key.
After a few chug-a-lugs the thing obliged by firing up as it never had before so I killed the ignition and leaped out to try to quell the flames licking out of the engine bay, using the first thing that caught my eye – the dogs’ blanket.
Things got worse, because the wiring burnt through and the starter began chugging away on its own, pumping fuel out through the fractured pipe – that had no doubt started all the trouble – on to the smouldering blanket.
I slammed the bonnet shut to deprive the flames of oxygen, pushed the car out of the garage, then ran inside to call the fire department as flames and smoke erupted from everywhere.
By the time I’d finished my call things were getting messy outside, with roaring flames and a cloud of thick black smoke billowing skywards from my little cul-de-sac. I arrived back on the scene just as the first tyre exploded with an enormous bang, followed closely by the windscreen, and I suddenly discovered how thirsty a big fright makes you. I bellowed an obscenity and sprinted back inside to quench my thirst with a huge slug of Coke, then dashed back outside for the finale.
The fire brigade, when it came, managed to save the entire boot and differential, and the rear doors were mostly still blue – well, bluish!
Having cremated my everyday transport, I had to get my Yamaha XS1100 back on the road. The bike had been standing for some time, and the ageing fuel taps had allowed some of the fuel tank’s contents to seep into the sump and merge with the oil. I took the exhaust headers off to get at the drain plug, let the oil run out into the catch tray on the floor, and thumbed the starter button briefly to pump any recalcitrant oil out of the engine. The only problem was that the muck in the sump still contained a fair amount of petrol. The engine spluttered briefly, coughed big blue flames out of the exhaust ports, and the contents of the drip-tray flared up with a whoosh.
My bike’s spontaneous combustion worked out a lot better than that of the Chevair six days earlier, thanks to a friend who had given me a fire extinguisher when he’d heard that my car was crisped. I think he was trying to be funny. Jenny wasn’t amused when I used it, though, because she’d come back from PE to take control: she’d had the Chev’s blackened carcass towed up the driveway on clattering rims, and then spent the whole Saturday morning washing and polishing the soot off her beloved VW Beetle.
I went into the house to find Jenny. “You’ll never guess what just happened.” She came outside and surveyed the scene in ominous silence. The garage looked like something from a Christmas movie, with everything, including her Beetle, covered in a thick layer of white powder.
However, I pointed out that while the Chevair conflagration had attracted the neighbours, the traffic department and a big red fire engine dripping with muscular part-time firemen eager to show off their skills, this time I’d managed to extinguish the offending Yamaha and protect her car on my own without any fuss.
She didn’t seem to appreciate that.
The two fire new extinguishers are still in the garage. Surely it would make sense to keep one in the kitchen? I’d ask, but I don’t want to raise the subject. I think that’s what she’s waiting for…