Sometimes you just need to sit back, relax, and light one up after a hard day’s work. No one can really fault you for it. That is, unless the immediate result of your smoke break is an explosion.
That’s what happened to Joseph Brennan of Norwell, Mass. this past Saturday night. He decided to use some leftover gunpowder to smoke in his car. That’s right, he lit a cigarette with gunpowder. According to The Boston Globe:
“I’m an idiot. I lit a cigarette with the gunpowder in the front seat,” he told an eyewitness after the explosion, according to a police report filed in Quincy District Court.
Brennan allegedly told police he had gotten various materials from a friend to tinker with. “I wasn’t going to do anything malicious,” he said, according to the report.
Police said they found him with singed eyebrows and smelling of burnt gunpowder when they arrived.
So why would Brennan (or anyone, for that matter) have gunpowder lying around in his car? Because he fancies himself a bit of an explosives amateur, that’s why. Brennan swears it was all an honest mistake, and that his interest in rocket propellants is strictly a hobby.
Even so, he’s still being charged with possession of an incendiary device and other counts related to the materials authorities found in his home. And all of this for a smoke break.
(Via The Boston Globe)