Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire
Scott Robinson, 42, says he wasn’t drunk or high when he set fire to his own house in Harrison County, Ind., which completely destroyed it. He did, however, admit he had drunk “four or five shots” of scotch first, and had used methamphetamine in the days before the fire. Meanwhile, a woman in Zuelpich, Germany, was trying to kill some spiders in her garage. Hair spray didn’t kill them, so she tried to burn them with a lighter. That ignited the hair spray, and the fire swept through her house. “It’s now uninhabitable,” a police spokesman says, adding the spiders are gone too. Last, three men in Waipukurau, New Zealand, were trying to steal fuel from a farm. Their car wouldn’t start, police say: they had put diesel into their gasoline-engine car. They “examined” the fuel pipe, says police spokesman Ross Gilbert, with a lighter, which naturally set fire to the car. It was a total loss. They were charged with theft but nothing else, he says — “there is no criminal charge for stupidity.” (Louisville Courier-Journal, Reuters, Reuters) ...More’s the pity.
Available in This is True: Book Collection Vol. 12