WordKnot

Most of you that know me will undoubtedly assume that it’s just that my brain is leaking funny stories.  Apparently it’s sieve (however the hell you spell that).  It’s not always easy to come up with good stories, but I’m sure that is little consolation to you.
This story is, in fact, not my own.  It belongs to my father and, after getting so sick of telling it that he simply refused to do so anymore, he bequeathed it to me.  So, it has fallen to me to tell this infamous story.  I’ll be changing the name of the “main character” (other than my father) in this story so as not to incriminate my dad.  Also, I’ll be telling the story in the first person, simply for the reason that it’s much better that way.

So, I was in the boy scouts and had gotten to the position of troop leader.  So I had my own group of people that I was responsible for.  We were on a camp out one evening and sitting around the campfire, feeling a little bored.  Off in the distance we could see an oil drake pumping away and we decided to go explore.  The drake was, in fact, working properly and was pumping crude oil.  Every once in a while down the pipeline, where there was a bend or a joint there would be, inevitably, a small leak.  We put buckets under there and sooner or later wound up with several buckets full of crude oil.

Being the responsible troop of boy scouts that we were, we of course immediately wrapped strips of cloth around large sticks, soaked them in the oil, lit them on fire, and ran through the forest screaming and yelling with blazing torches held high.  It was a sight to behold.

Anyways, the night is winding down and we’ve finally grown tired of running through the woods with torches.  We settled down by the fire, each with our bucket of oil.  As the evening wore on, we would splash a small amount of oil on the fire from time to time and watch the flames erupt then subside.  A good time.  Everyone was having a nice evening when John Hodgins (the original name was much better, and for those of you who will undoubtedly give me a hard time for picking a different, obscure name…fuck you) showed up.

Now John was a special kind of person.  He was grossly overweight, clumsy, smelled badly and had a stutter, a stutter that got noticeably worse whenever he was nervous.  Now, this is the kind of person that one should feel bad for, seeing as how he had no friends.  Well, we would have felt bad for him if it weren’t for his attitude.  This particular overweight, smelly, stuttering buffoon believed himself to be God’s gift to the world.  His arrogance was matched only by his girth (which is saying something).

Anyways, John shows up from the other side of the camp to see what we’re up to.  In an attempt to keep him from telling the scout master on us, those with buckets were slowly trying to hide them, but too late.  He’d seen one.
“What do you have?” he asked, directly.
“It’s nothing.” reply several scouts at once, only increasing his curiosity.
This exchange went back and forth several times before he eventually found out exactly what we had, and what we were doing with it.  When he heard that we were putting it on the fire, he got even more interested.
“Can I put some on the fire?” asked John.
“NO!” shouted several scouts at once.
At this point, I get an idea and stand up.
“You’d do it wrong.” I say calmly.
“No I wouldn’t.” he protested
“Well, how would you do it then?” I ask
“I’d just go up, tip the bucket and poor a little in.” he answered.
“See?  That’s the wrong way.” I shoot back.
He looks at me dumbly and asks. “Well then how do you do it.”
“Well, if you just go up and poor a little in, the flame will climb up the stream into the bucket and the whole bucket will explode in your hands.  Then I’d be responsible for you blowing your hands off.  What you have to do is just turn the bucket upside down and dump the whole thing on there all at once.”  I answer.
At this point I can see my troop slowly moving back, away from the fire.
“Nuh-uh!” says John
“Hey, I’m not gonna be responsible for you blowing off your hands.  If you want to try it you have to do it right.” I said.
So, he takes the bucket from me and moves toward the fire.  He stands right next to the fire, lifts the bucket in the air, and turns it over.
SPLOOSH!! The fire nearly dies out.  Then, all of a sudden a flame shoots high into the air and out in a large circle from the base.  The flames lick the edges of John’s shoes, lighting them on fire.  Almost immediately the scout master rushes over.
“WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?” he bellows.
He looks at John and sees him holding the empty bucket, shoes still smoking and assumes.  John realizes what it looks like too.
He points at me and says, “B-b-b-but h-h-h-e…” and before he can get any further, I jump in.
“Oh sure, John, blame me.  Why don’t you just blame all of us?”
The scoutmaster grabs John by the ear and hall him away.

Needless to say, we didn’t hear from John for the rest of the trip.