A few months after I began my in home chemistry experiments at the age of 10 (and my chemistry set disappeared), my best friend Gilbert and I were walking down an alley and we became curious as to what was in a small building. As luck would have it, the back door wasn�t locked so we decided it would be OK if we went in. So naturally we did.
Good golly, I had never seen so many bottles of different colored liquids! Since I already had extensive experience as a chemist and since I was an up and coming scientist I knew we had discovered a laboratory. Oh Joy!
There was a large glass bowl on a table so we decided to mix a few chemicals to see what would happen. It didn�t take but a couple of minutes till we found out we had made a serious mistake. That stuff we had poured into the glass bowl started smoking like crazy and the bowl started jumping up and down on the table like there was an earthquake or something.
Since I was brave and a real leader, I immediately took charge and instructed Gilbert to open the nearest door, which happened to be the front one. I valiantly grabbed that now dangerous bowl full of acids and threw that smoking mess out into the street.
Unfortunately, some of it landed right on a wooden step by the door. We then made another quick decision that it was time to get our tails out of there and out we went thru the back door, strolled down the alley and then came back up the street (which was a dirt road) toward the scene of our experiment.
I don�t know where they came from, but my father and a friend of his were by then standing right in front of that �laboratory� talking.
Of course you might know, Gilbert and I ambled innocently along toward them praying that our chemistry experiment hadn�t been discovered. My father�s friend then made a bad decision! He sat down on the recently acidized wooden steps.
He didn�t stay there but just for a few seconds however. Then he jumped up and said, �My God I am on fire!� and went running across the street to his house. The rear of his britches was in tatters. What a sight that was a sight to behold! Fortunately his house was very close by and he jumped in the bathtub, turned on the cold water and stayed there for quite a while, clothes and all (what was left of them).
The mystery of the disintegrating britches was never solved!
By now you probably are wondering how I ever reached my teen age years. Miracles do happen!