Hal me boy, tis a shame you had to leave the picnic at What Exit?'s home before I shared some stories from my years as a firefighter, including one which would have underscored the basic concept that open flames are NOT the most effective means of combatting insects. 
Be thankful those are apparently flame retardant treated curtains-it could have turned into a bigger awshit had they been something like ordinary fabric.
So did the fireball go further than imagined? Or should I instead be picturing a flaming fly buzzing around for a second?
You’re gonna need a bigger insect.
A big hornet, or a number of them - if you killed a fearsome insect with a makeshift flame thrower, you might be forgiven.
Alternatively, hide all the other evidence and claim someone was shooting laser beams at you through the window.
Or claim it’s a new kind of art.
BWAHAHAHAHA! You think that wouldn’t arouse suspicion? 
…
Fixed that for you.
Where’s the fun in that? You can start barbecue fires with less than a gallon of lighter fluid, but why would you want to?
I was hoping she didn’t scour the ends of the Earth looking for “just the right color” for her curtains. Lucky you! Take her shopping the minute she gets home.
:::snerk::: I popped in here to make that exact same observation.
See, my brother once tried to deal with a fly near a window. Only, this being some years back (I believe he was 6 at the time), he was unaware of the Bic / Pledge method so he had to settle for a baseball bat.
The fly, as far as we know, survived. As you can imagine, the window did not.
Clearly your method is FAR superior
I just remembered this thread at the Something Awful forums describing a scaled-up version of this pest-control method, only it was outside.
If you’re going to deny it (which I suggest), I say go the two-year old route.
“Why are there burn marks on the curtains?”
“What burn marks? Oh those. I have no idea where that came from. Probably a band of roaming gypsies.”
“Did you do this?”
“No, of course not. I would never do such a thing. How dare you accuse me!?”
Then you walk off angry, but then come back and apologize for getting emotional then go buy her something.
She’ll forget all about it.
Hal, my husband just called.
I read him your OP.
He says he wants you to be King.
Yes, my husband is an idiot, and Hal is his King.
The funniest part is imagining the slow dawning horror, staring at the burned curtain, followed by the jolt of happiness: “I know! I’ll post this on the Dope! Okay, where’s the camera…” and then a couple of minutes of crawling around on the floor looking for the fly cadaver.
Heh…you’re both got it pretty much right (except the fly cadaver was right where I said it was). It went kinda like this:
<FWAOOOOSH!!!>
"Ha! Gotcha, ya little buzzing bastohfuckohfuckohfuck! Oh, <whew!>, it went out at quick as it went up…
…
…
Holy crap, that was not smart.
…
…
Holy crap, how the fuck am I going to explain this?
…
…
Ah well…should make for a great Dope thread, at least."
Nothing to do with anything, really, but am I the only one who sees a demon in the ruined curtain? I’m guessing probably.
Yanno, I went through my pyro stage when I was a teenager, but what is it about men that most of them never seem to grow out of it?
I dunno, why is that women never seem to grow out of their “dress up” phase? 
Absolutely so!
Women **KNOW ** about these things. Years ago, I’d splattered something on Mom’s kitchen curtains. I took immediately took them down, chucked them into the washing machine and in two hours, the curtains were back up as if nothing happened.
When she came home, she asked what happened.
Umm… not much. Watched TV mostly, why do you ask?
“Becasue you don’t wash curtains for the fun of it on a Saturday night!”
wow
really
wow
The answer, of course, was to say that you were checking the house for fire-proofness, concerned dad that you are. “Honey, did you know these curtains are not fire retardant?! We could have died here. Let’s get some new ones to be safe.”
ETA: or start a thread “What’s the best way to kill a fly?” and create a sock to reply “The UN says that firepledge is the way to go”. “Honey, it was on the SDMB!”