My house smells like lighter fluid.

Okay, so sometimes I do some really stupid things. And the really, really stupid things are usually things I try when I think I'm being clever.

Jill being clever = trouble.

Case in point: The day I tried to fix—or "fix"—our dryer. We have a stacked washer/dryer and by "stacked" I mean "temperamental, abused, holy crap how soon can we get rid of this thing, oh wait we have to pay the mortgage, so I guess we keep it since technically it still works". One of the joys of the machine was the hideous squealing noise that came from the dryer. At first it was sporadic and you could only hear it if you were in the vicinity. Then it got louder...and louder...until one day, when DBF came home, he greeted me with, "What in the hell is that noise? You can hear it outside!"

So I decided I needed to eliminate the squeal.

Remember when I said you need to keep WD-40 around? Here's why...you can usually silence squeaks and squeals with it.

These are our dryer innards. My first plan of attack was to lubricate the belt because sometimes they get squeaky. Using the little red straw that's now conveniently attached to the WD-40 can, I applied the lubricant to the belt.

You know, while the dryer was running.

It's important to do this while the dryer is running so that you get the WD-40 on the whole belt. At least that's the general rule of thumb when lubricating belts, I had never tried this on a dryer.

Unfortunately this squeak wasn't coming from the belt. Next plan of attack, lubricate the drum.

As you can see, the drum is much bigger than the belt. Instead of trying to apply the WD-40 to the drum with the little red straw which would take a very long time, I folded down the straw and went full on sprayer.

Better coverage faster.

Again...with the dryer running.

Now, the smart(er) way to do this would have been to have the dryer running on fluff cycle...no heat. The belt and drum still turn, but there's no flame.

Flame?

Yep...it's a gas dryer so there's going to be a flame.

And lots of lint and dust.

And Jill sprays a flammable liquid into the innards, with the flame going...and sets them on fire.

Well, just a little.

It wasn't a big fire, it was just a little one fueled mostly by the dust and lint that had accumulated over time. Fortunately I was able to blow out the fire pretty easily, so no harm was done.

Interesting thing about WD-40: When you torch it, it smells like lighter fluid.

Interesting thing about torching WD-40 in the room adjacent to your HVAC system: It makes the whole house smell like lighter fluid.

Fortunately the lighter fluid smell dissipated in a couple of days...and I killed the squeal.