Sue, I think we are related. My father did this once, at Wheatley - only it was Coleman fuel, which blew up…
Were you there too? 
Didn’t blow myself up but get this…
We have a nice propane grill. I grill. Friends grill. Wife grills. Everyone but the dogs grill. (I guess they like it raw)(On second thought they’ve never been picky)
We also have propane heat, the lovely Chance estate being halfway up the Short Hill Mountain on the VA/WV line.
Our stage is set…
I wake up on a Sunday. Wander down the gravel driveway to get the paper.
sniff sniff “Hey! That’s Gas!”, I cry.
I go inside, wake up Mrs Chance, get her the heck out to the woods, get the port-o-phone, skedaddle out to the aforementioned woods thinking the propane heater has started leaking and we’re about to collect on the house insurance. At least I’d finally be able to get the bathroom remodeled as per Mrs Chance’s request.
I call my propane company. The emergency operator says, “Stay away from the house! I’m sending the fire department over and paging an engineer! DON’T GO NEAR THE HOUSE”
Pause for a mental image of myself in sweats and no shirt. My wife with the dogs on lead in her bathrobe. In the woods. No shoes. Halfway up the Short Hill. Geeks in the mist…
The fire department shows up. Paramedics, engines, the chief, everything. If John Gage and Roy DeSoto showed up I wouldn’t have been surprised at this point.
Say’s the chief, “Boy! You got a leak someplace! And there’s a LOT of it.” They begin pumping out the house with huge fans. “Now I’ll be responsible for burning down the woods”, I think to myself.
The engineer from my propane company shows up and begins to test. He tests the 500 gallon tank. Tight as a drum. He tests the line from the tank to the house. Tight as a drum. He puts on a mask and tests the piping in the cellar. Tight. He tests the stove. Tight. He tests the dryer. Tight. Downstairs furnance. Tight. Upstairs furnace. Tight.
Out on the porch motioning that he can’t find anything suddenly he stops. He gets that odd bemused look on his face. He goes the the grill (remember the grill). He closes the valve.
Mrs Chance had forgotten to close the valve the night before and the tank had been slowly emptying itself since last nights dinner.
Exit the engineer. Laughing.
Exit the firemen. Disgusted.
All of them looking at ME!
Quoth Mrs Chance, “Huh? What did I do?”
Argh
-JC
You didn’t by chance, happen to ask the neighbor girl to supply the “meat” for the bar be que did you?..
Thanks VB… Just moving some pictures around. So it’s little holes. Hardware store huh… They let women in there???
Jonathan: nothing to add really, but I just wanted to point out that I love your style of writing - I laughed my ass off 
Hmm. Is it coincidence that Clark Griswold made a pilgrimage to WALLY WORLD???
Which makes me envision a Wally World as designed by our Wally. If you got out alive, it’d be a blast!
Wally, you are a total hoot! Once again I was caught snorting with laughter at work while I sneaked a peek at SDMB.
Jonathan, I agree w/ Coldfire; that was great! Hilarious stuff. (I especially liked the “geeks in the woods” imagery.)
FWIW, my former and thoroughly regrettable spouse was a great proponent of dousing fires w/ gasoline. He called it the Boy Scout Method. He really enjoyed the boom and whoosh! of fire blazing into the tree branches. And it left such a tangy, high-octane aftertaste on the food.
At home I use a humble Smokey Joe w/ an electric charcoal lighter. Stack the charcoal around the lighter, plug 'er in and presto-bingo, it lights.
Call me a wimp, but years spent manually lighting a gas oven w/ a defective pilot light, and re-lighting the gas furnace is excitement enough for me.
Veb
ROFL!!! Wally, I always know that whenever I’m in need of a laugh, I just find a thread started by you! Maybe there’s hope for me yet, as I haven’t managed to do anything quite that bad. YET. 
Thanks, Amy, I can sure tell that you’re his daughter. Great observation about his lack of certainty about what happened.
Jonathan, that was almost even funnier! I adored the “geeks in the mist” image! I can just picture the looks on their faces when they discovered the origin of the gas smell!
SwimmingRiddles:
You should ask Dad about “The Case of the Mysterious TV Errant Signals.” Even today, Mom and I will sometimes look at each other, cock our heads a little, and shout in unison: “Errant Signals.” Then proceed to break down in helpless, hysterical laughter. When it stops annoying Dad, we’ll probably give it up.
I did it again. That was me, not Dad in the above post.
How do I make it so that WallyM7 is not the default name?
get him to buy you your own pc and phoneline.
and a car.
Wally, these things dont just happen. they just happen to you!!
and Amy, make sure you dont log into any chatlines as him by mistake. you never know who you might end up talking to… 
Amy, perhaps this board isn’t for you.
I could sign you up for AOL Teen Chat. It’ll be fun. You’ll see.
The errant signal thing is history. It’s over. Forgotten. Boring.
Say,don’t you have homework or something?
hi
I like boring stories, why not share with us Wally? I could use a nice nap.
Amy,
Don’t listen to your Dad on this one ( did I, the mother of a 19 year old male, say that ? ). You don’t want to join any AOL teen chat room. You want to stay here with us on the SDMB.
Tell us the story, don’t worry, we’ll protect you. You could always come to Texas.
And Wally you don’t want to be called out for newbie bashing, do you ?
Now tell us the story or we send a nice box with 1,000 gerbils in it to your house.
I think we should start collecting votes now for Amy as our favorite new poster of all time. I though Wally was funny when he decided what was and was not newsworthy.
My teenage son has removed the spark igniter from our barbecue since he figured out that it is an excellent torture device. It works on almost any part of the body but is especially effective on the neck and ears. Ask his siblings.
p.s. You can still get a good “whomp” from the barbecue with a match. Of course from now on we’ll have to call it a good “wally”.
Come on Wally, puhleeze, puhleeze, puhleeze, puhleeze, puhleeeeeze, tell us about the errant signals.
Keith