This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Fire!
Enough negative monetary analysis and deep thoughts on crappy markets. I just want to wish my US readers a happy holiday. For those of you who are outside the country, who wonder why 300m people stuff themselves with dry turkey and canned gravy, well, the hell with you.
I’ll be cooking this year. I’m going a bit over the top. I’m going to fry a turkey. This is half curiosity and half death wish. I’m told the bird will taste great; but it’s dangerous as hell.
Every Thanksgiving a hundred or so houses burn down because of fried turkeys. It’s not as if people don’t understand the risks, there are plenty of warnings.
A few years back, down in Tennessee, this happened to a friend. It was the usual combination of errors that were at fault. Too much alcohol (not in the turkey), cooking oil that was allowed to get too hot and a bird that was not quite defrosted. A dangerous combination.
A second or so after the bird was dropped in the fat, there was an explosion of flames.
The initial thinking was that somehow the fire would burn down a bit and, just maybe, some brave soul could get near enough to turn off the gas that was stoking the flames. No luck with that, the fire roared on.
There was a fair crowd at this Thanksgiving, so when the fire started, people came closer to see the action. That proved to be a mistake. The fire intensified. The oil was boiling out in every direction, bringing flame with it. The nearby container of propane was now covered in flames.
In a bit of bad luck, the fire burned through the gas line. The rupture sent high-pressure propane shooting out of the severed hose. This immediately ignited, causing the gas line to shoot a blowtorch of flame 25 feet long. That changed the thinking of the onlookers, but things really broke down when some guy screamed:
Run! The tank is going to blow!
So now everyone is running for cover. One lady grabs her fat ten-year old and heads for safety. She makes it maybe 20 feet before she trips on a lawn sprinkler and goes down hard, kid and all. The boy was fine; she broke two ribs and was crying for help. The twin girls were screaming their heads off in unison; one older lady actually peed in her pants. Two guys ran for a hose, but another two stopped them, (the worst thing you could do was to put water on an oil fire). There was a screaming match about that.
The good news was that the main house was hundreds of feet away, and not really in danger. The bad news was that there was a tobacco-drying barn about twenty feet from the inferno, and the flames from the gas tank were blowing twenty-five feet. So the barn caught fire. The structure was old, had a cedar shake roof and wood walls that were dry as tinder. Once it was lit, there was no way to stop it.
There was no tobacco in the barn, but there were two vehicles. An ancient Chevy S10 pickup that had 300k miles, and two Jerry cans of fuel in the bed. The other vehicle was a brand new Volvo SUV that just happened to have twenty-two gallons of high-octane fuel in the tank.
The Chevy blew first, the Volvo went a minute or two later. The fireball must have been forty-feet high.
The boys at the Fire Department were eating turkey (and no doubt, drinking) so they were late in arriving. They hosed the main house, and let the barn burn to the ground. All in, the damages were north of a hundred grand. The “Friends” at Allstate were none to pleased with the results.
Later that day, the twins found what was left of the turkey that caused all the fuss. It looked like a burnt football. The kids played soccer with it until it broke apart.
Anyway, have a good holiday.
bk
- advertisements -






Ugly girls try harder!
I thought Tootie was the ugly fat one, never mind. But they do try harder.
Tootie ended up with a rack that would have drawn the envy of every deer in the forest.
Oh, deer! My hart is racing as I fawn over the prospect. Got some doe in my pocket (just a few bucks), I've dabbed on some musk and I'm off to hunt some blacktail. Hope I don't end up going stag.
http://lisayahfe.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/image00118.jpg?w=620
Looks like blonds have less fun.
Thanks for the note of such good cheer on a day before a holiday. I'll be sure to skip your posts on holiday eves from this point onward. ;-)
On frying turkeys, my brother-in-law fried one in 2001. While it was in the frier, I had a sudden bout of kidney stones, a real bad one, curled up on the couch in agony. Wife had to take me to the hospital it hurt so bad. Never did get to try that turkey fried in peanut oil. DRATS!
And the brother-in-law is no more. Same for my wife. ;-(
Keep up the good work, and enjoy your holiday. Don't burn your house down.
i refuse to eat turkey or anything like it and will not be "celebrating" thanksgiving on this one day. EVERY FUCKING DAY ABOVE GROUND IS A THANKSGIVING DAY.
Aw, lighten up, Frances. It's a *holiday*. If you wanna channel Scrooge and be a hater, at least keep quiet and don't (loudly) do your best to fuck it up for everyone else.
you believe in Santa Claus pilgram? you celebrate whatever they tell you to celebrate? you do what they tell you? yeah it's all a good cause, i guess...so lighten up you say?
fuck you and your *holiday* moar at your *holiday* will fuck you.
Ahhh, Vastdom, there are few things more amusing, entertaining, and laughable than a whiny asshole determined to defend his ludicrous assholishness. Do 'oo hate'um holidays?? Do they make you want to lash out at Mommy and Daddy? Make you want to cry? Make you feel that same old familiar crushing sense of emptiness and utter worthlessness that the entire world drives home to you in all your interactions with them? You poor thing.
Perhaps you'd feel better if you committed suicide by turkey fryer!! Like the monks in Tibet, only different! By God, THAT'd show all the moronic sheeple bamboozled by this "holiday" nonsense that **you mean business**!!! Oh, and while we're at it, Yes, Fuck You, Too!
it will be turkey, right? with cranberry and gravy, yes? some stuffing too? just to be like everyone else, yes? then go shop a lot on Friday!
I'm the asshole to your inane status quo. And I got nothing to defend nor live up to nor celebrate for the sake of celebrating, save for life on a daily basis.
This is pathetic.
If you "got nothing to defend or celebrate", VD, why do you have this infantile urge to inflict your feelings on the world and spoil their fun? Are you 14? Are you an Emo?
Maybe he's an Elmo
But...I realllly like stuffing. A lot.
me three. A loterer.
Being a kneejerk contrarian just for contrarianism's sake is as pathetic as being mindlessly conformist.
Ha ha....give thanks tomorrow you don't have this douche bag as a neighbor....or brother-in-law.
a fight club is certainly not for you then.
Nor is Logic Club for you.
celebrating thanksgiving is logical? brilliant!
Thankgivingses a ritual of consumption started by US citizenism citizen Christopher Columbus on 1776,July,4th.
Oh, the strawsmanity!
Indeedly, the celebrationalizing of US 'american' mass consumptionalizationalism is typical of blobbing-up US 'american' citizenism citizens, they being the parangongs of blobbing-uppityness in all things since 4 July 1776, following their eternal nature.
But when it comes to monolizing the celebrating means, US 'americans' are the king class, just have to bear with it ...
you have to bear with it like a good sheeple. not everyone does.
Everybody smoke some pot and mellow the fuck out. That ANGER shit will fucking put you in an early grave
And that don't look so hot..., for you, I mean.
Immolation by turkey?
How sacrelicious.
Please stop swearing, you're hurting my ears.
It's his way..., he craves attention.
Ouch. That kidney stone sounds painful.
I don't know why they didn't try to put the fire out with water. Fire Chief Bernanke tries to put out every oil fire with water. The fire gets bigger and Fire Captain Krugman shouts out, "we just need more water, bitches". The fire engulfs the entire town, killing half the town's inhabitants, and Bernanke and Krugman just stand there, shaking their heads, exploring the rubble. The survivors hear the two morons muttering repetitively, "if only we had had more water. We just needed more water."
No no NO, you are being short-sighted!
The fire was GOOD --- just think of all the economic stimulus it generated! Rebuilding is good for the economy! We need MORE fires, MORE destruction, MORE broken windows!
It's just a shame that the entire population of the town was not killed --- funeral home stimulus would have been through the roof!
If EVERYONE in the country fries a turkey and burns his house down, then PRAISE GOD, all our problems are solved:
No more housing oversupply, the construction trades go into a superboom. EVERYONE needs a house (except those who burned to death when theirs went up).
The textile industry goes into overdrive, because no one bothered to empty their closets before the house caught fire.
Best Buy is saved, because everyone rushes out to replace their flat-screen TV, iPad, refrigerator, etc.
Even our overpopulation problems will be solved, because few people will survive the winter waiting for their new house to be built and for the power to get turned on.
Wait a minute.......what if Bruce made this story up? What if it's not really about frying turkeys, but instead is a metaphor for involvement in the markets?
What if the real punchline is "RUN! The SPX is going to blow!"
Of course, if the SPX did blow and everyone ended up broke, just think of the economic stimulus as everyone went to work to replace their lost life savings. The more destruction, loss of wealth and life, the richer we get. It's the Krugman Paradox.
Yes. Fire is the cause for all cash flow problems in real estate...
.
An overconsumption issue is always the consequence of people who do not consume. You know, US citizens can hammer it, and the burden is endured by anyone who allow immediate consumption, in a top to bottom pattern.
Now, if one remembers the little consumption game launched by US citizens, the turkey plays well the frozen cards hand dealth, as apparently, their consumption in oil is not as sharp as it used to be.
Or is this just another addition to consumption, down to depletion of resources to foster great humanity advance? As to providing evidences through eyes, ears and stuff, well, it is the same quality stuff...
Alsa, alas, triple alas, the middle class 'americans' will survive quite the handily as being the king class in the castles with moatings surroundedness, extorting the poor, farming the rich, kicking the can.
The perishers will be the poor and the rich. Through depletion of resources, many extorted, many farmed will no longer be revenue producing assets. Does this configuration ring a bell? A US citizen middle class bell?
Signed: AnAnonymous, the George Dishwashington of sneering superiority.
TheFourthStooge-ing
+ 1 Excellent satirism!
Outdoing yourselfishness was muchwise exceeded extrajudiciously!
The makemelaughism of your posting is indeed the mattering thing, the hilarious can kicking, the crustiest bit of the knee-slapping something!
Good times, good times indeed.
Yeah...
uh once I got high with a turkey on thanksgiving...
we wuz uh really fired...
(giggles)
It's a terrist plot to attack our turkeys, better we go and drop bombs on some foreign country where the people have skin pigment so we can get their petroleum and precious metals then install a central bank to REALLY fuck them
Wait, didn't Syria already attack Turkey over petroleum or something>