(from the blook) building word power through matches

i was eleven when i happened by the open garage door.
the empty can of paint stripper said, inflammable.
my mind reasoned: hmm ... expensive-inexpensive, correct-incorrect, flammable ... um ... inflammable!
i was prepared to test my newly acquired deductive reasoning skills.

so i took out my matches (in the sixties, eleven year old boys worth their salt always carried a book of matches and their trusty cub scout knife).
i lit a match and placed it to the bubbling paint on the door resting atop two wooden horses (part of mom’s better housekeeping induced, natural wood campaign).
well, it didn’t take long before the door was fully ablaze, and with it any deductive reasoning skills recently acquired.
thanks to mom’s quick thinking to use the garden hose, the garage was saved, and therefore the follow-up wooden spoon beating rather inconsequential.
in", can occasionally mean, "more", as in "more flammable than the surface of the sun".
it defies deductive thought quite honestly—more likely some kind of adult trick to keep kids on their toes.

and to think this important building-word-power lesson was the result of my ever present book of matches—a rather hollow benefit of some good thinking given the particular word in question and resulting outcome.