That is PERFECT!!! An excellent life lesson for the kid, and an AWESOME story for posterity. HAHA thanks for sharing that 
It’s not about the motorcycle - it’s about the angle that the nozzle is held into the tank with.
Gas nozzles will shut off for a motorcycle, but you have to put the nozzle properly down into the tank. Problem with this is, you get about 1 to 1.5 gallons LESS fuel that way. So everybody holds the nozzle so only the tip is in the tank, and the fuel never rises to the level on the actual nozzle itself that shuts it off.
Try it out sometime by filling a portable gas can. The nozzle contains the shutoff mechanism, not the tank into which it is being dispensed. You could do the same thing with a barrel, a bucket, anything really.
when I was stationed in Germany during the early 70’s, we were planning a grill-out to supplement a lot of beer, some good steaks, and some excellent Moroccan hashish. Well, we decided that starting coals with the grill sitting on top of a plastic garbage can made perfect sense so we violated some pretty sound implicit instructions. ‘Why do you think they call it dope, stupid?’
“Try our way first”
This reminds me of the time an acquaintance was trying to start his car on a very cold day, using starter fluid from a can that you spray into the carburetor. He figured that while the instructions called for a couple of spritzes, it’d be more effective if he sprayed in half the can.
The resulting gout of flames not only singed the engine compartment and paintwork, it ignited the basket of laundry he’d placed on the roof and burned up all his clean clothes. 
How to speak Minnesotan (A Prairie Home Companion skit)
What a Texan would say:
DAG NABBIT! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? YOU DON’T HAVE THE SENSE THAT GOD GAVE GEESE AND GOD KNOWS GOD DIDN’T GIVE NO SENSE TO NO GOOSE!
What a Minnesotan would say in the same situation.
Gee Carl, most guys wouldn’t weld so close to their gas tank like that. Just saying, that’s all.
Is your son Minnesotan?
Albertan born and bred, so kind of the same thing. The Prairies tend to give you that sense of humour…Possibly because you need that or a large dose of crazy to willingly live here…
My favorite “not reading the instructions” story is sort of inverted. I was at a party and it was 'round about the time of night when people lose basic mechanical abilities, and someone had brought a brand new stereo and couldn’t get it to work. They turned to me, reasoning that since I am a computer programmer, naturally I would be able to get the stereo to work.
Now, I was also losing my mechnical abilities from partying, but was clear headed enough to ask “did you read the instructions?” blank stares. So I RTFM, and stereoing ensued.
Well, you certainly don’t want to be driving a lemon.
Heh. I live in Texas, but I tend toward the Minnesotan approach. One of my gearhead friends is conditioned to freeze when he hears me say, “May I point out…” He’s learned that that phrase is always followed by a gentle observation that he’s doing something that’s probably going to go painfully, but not instantly*, awry. “May I point out that you’re lying directly under that piece of metal you’re cutting loose?” is a classic example. “I don’t know , but…” makes him stop and look at me, but not actually go tharn like the other phrase. Those usually mean he’s about to screw up something obvious, but not in a way that will hurt him.
For what it’s worth, I’m also inclined to read instructions.
*If the danger is immediate, I use more direct phrasing, of course.
Balance you fail to see how that ties into the other thread around here of Stupidist ways you have hurt yourself and denys us of some great stories.
Well, a) they wouldn’t be about me hurting myself, and b) they were mostly averted by my pointed, if circumlocutory, remarks.
So much win. I’ve found my new band name / mmorpg charname / next forum username.
Canadian Tire: where great adventures in Canada begin.
My father has a doctorate in physics. And I remember, lo’ one summer day when I was about 12 he was dismayed that the coals for the bbq weren’t catching quickly enough in the stiff breeze. So out comes the almost empty metal can of lighter fluid to be squeezed over the low smouldering coals. One squirt, two squirts - as he is shaking it vigorously at the same time to get the last few drops out - three squirts, BOOM.
Nice little fireball and he is left shaken but unharmed, the back of the can still in his hand with entire front half blown away :p. Taught me a valuable lesson, it did ;).
Taught you how to blow up things without getting hurt? 
For a kid, that’s about as valuable a lesson as you can get!
That so reminds me of a “game” my friend’s buddies would play when I was a teenager ( I never did do this one, but many other equally dumb things are in my repository, like Roman Candle Fights). It was called See How Far They Run". Runner would hold an open can of naptha and start running with the nozzle pointing backwards. After two seconds, the trail was ignited, and the person who could go the furthest before the flame caught up to the can or you ran out of naptha, won. No one ever got hurt as far as I know but the potential shitstorm of hurt that could have happened makes me shudder today. Maybe having screen-agers isn’t all bad. I’m pretty sure I’d have been arrested for half the dumbass stuff I did if I did it today.
Yes, the catalytic converters get hot – hot enough to ignite leaves underneath a parked car.
Simple Green it is.
P.S. Did you hear the one about the guy who poured gasoline into a rented pressure washer, so he could de-grease his hot engine? Yes, he created quite the flamethrower. Kind of like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqQ6YFGht-o&ab_channel=ThingsToDoHd
Or this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCbKULf9pX0&ab_channel=thinginc