A few years ago I bought an impressive ornate drinks fountain from a guy in Norfolk. I went down in person to pick it up. After I had loaded it in my van I got talking to him and he suddenly burst into tears. Now comforting heartbroken men isn’t really my forte. But eventually through his sobs I made out that his wife was having an affair, and that she had left him with his four kids.
I was by this point looking for an exit strategy as I had a long drive home. I did however pause when he told me he wanted to sell the rest of the business, which consisted of two chocolate fountains, a popcorn machine, a large number of chair covers, and a large number of bookings.
“Oh I’ll keep my eye out on eBay for one of the fountains”I said.
“No, I want to sell the business as a going concern and I want £3000.”
“Done”, said I as I opened the back of the van to start loading my new business up.
I remember getting home and carrying everything into the kitchen. My wife came in and burst into tears looking at the mass of stuff.
The First Job
As we got used to operating the fountains, we eventually bought soup soup kettles, these were great for melting the chocolate, you could fill them up leave them on and they wouldn’t burn or thicken the chocolate too much. But on the first job we took a microwave to melt it in batches.
Anyway at the venue, the speeches etc were over running as these things tend to do. I was getting a bit anxious as never having done a chocolate fountain job before, I wanted the spare time in case of any problems. Eventually the manager told me I could set up. I whipped the fountain up in no time then started melting the chocolate.
As I finished the last batch I shoved the jug I had been using into the microwave. Unfortunately the jug still had a couple of napkins and a spoon in. As I closed the door the microwave sprang to life. I didn’t notice, but the spoon was creating sparks which set fire to the napkins.
Towering Inferno’s Little Brother
When I did notice, I grabbed it with the intention of running outside to dispose of it. As I picked it up and hugged it to myself, the hotel manager came into the room to talk to me about doing another event. So there I was stood, holding a sodding microwave that inside was rapidly turning into a mini towering inferno, whilst praying that smoke didn’t start coming out of the top whilst in front of the manager.
Eventually he finished and left me alone, I ran outside to empty the burning crap out only to see the entire wedding party stood outside whilst the main room was turned around.
FFS, I ended up opening the back of the van up and jumping in there, emptying the fire out on the floor and dancing around to stamp it out, a bit like the twisted firestarter song really.
I think time I stumbled out the van I was coughing from the smoke but otherwise fine. The manger and the guests never tumbled and we did a number of jobs in the same hotel.
The moral of the story is, its awfully easy to become the twisted firestarter, totally innocently lol.
