​​​​​​Because humor is funnier when you know it's true.

Watch your carbs

Back in the day of muscle cars, I used to clean and rebuild carburetors.  It was a sideline job I did mostly for family and friends, and for which I made very little money.  I would buy a carburetor rebuild kit for about and just charge the customer for parts and a tiny bit for labor, maybe $25 total. 

I learned mostly via trial and error.  One memorable error was the time I thought I could save time and effort in the cleaning of the carburetors by putting one in an oven and hitting the self-clean function.  Upon completion of the cleaning cycle, I opened the door to find a pool of melted metal.  Apparently self-cleaning temperatures reach 900 to 1000F. 

Typically I rebuilt carbs for General Motors cars and got to the point where I could do those in my sleep.  One day, my future brother in-law asked if I could help one of his coworkers.  The prospective customer was a chef at the restaurant where they both worked.  The chef, I’ll call him Pierre, was a French native who drank while he worked.  He gave me the job. 

He had an Oldsmobile Toronado, and so I bought the usual GM carb kit, and completed the job easily.  Louie picked up his car, paid me, thanked me in his very broken English, and drove away.  It felt good that I could help him out. 

A little while later, I got a very exasperated call from my brother-in-law to be, saying that Pierre was driving his car home when suddenly he heard a whoosh and small explosion.  That was followed by a fireball that erupted under the car hood.  Tongues of flame extended out from under the wheel wells! 

I had the car towed to a shop and went to see it.  When I got there, it was a horrific scene.  Hoses, wires, and anything made of plastic or rubber were all melted into a smoldering, molten mass.  I couldn’t believe it.