Why I'd make a bad arsonist.
In eighth grade, I failed Camping Skills. Seriously, that was a PE class, and I failed it. I didn't just fail it, I failed spectacularly. Our fire wouldn't light and when it finally did, somehow the tent cover blew into it and caught fire also. We scrambled the eggs before we cooked the bacon. When we took the written test, it was like I had never even heard of any of that information. One question was "What are five kinds of fires?"
I said, "Camp fire, forest fire, house fire, big fire, little fire."
Those were not the right answers. Apparently they wanted answers about something involving log configuration. I was also wrong with my answer to "What do you call the test where you can run your hands through the ashes of your campfire to make sure it is out?" and I said "Stupid."
It's cold out there tonight, and since P's driving the party bus home from soccer, he isn't here. I decided I'd seen people light fires plenty of times and it doesn't look that hard, right?
So I built myself a little log pile and set to lighting some kindling. I pulled on the damper chain and soon my wee fire was roaring beautifully.
Since I was sitting on the floor and smoke rises, I didn't realize until Ez asked from his perch on the sofa, "Is it supposed to smoke that much?"
The answer, my friends, is no. No, it is not. Or if it is, that smoke is supposed to float gently up the chimney.
Which it wasn't doing. At all. I fruitlessly yanked the chain again while the house filled with smoke. And when I say "filled with smoke," I mean, soon became a thick blanket of black smoke churning through the whole house. It was like something out of a damn movie.
I ushered Ez and Pet to my non-smoky bedroom with strict instructions to stay put, and started flinging open windows and doors and turning on fans. Since it's in the forties outside, my house was now freezing in addition to being smoky. My eyes started stinging and burning and tears were flowing, and the smoke detector goes off with it's screeching at the same time Ez starts screaming for me. I ran upstairs and turned off the alarm--yes, infernal beeping, I KNOW the house is smoky--and run back down with my tear-streaked face to find Ez and Pet huddled on my bed like Dickensian orphans, Pet's nose gushing blood because she crashed into the bed. So, I clean up Pet while the smoke is still billowing out of the fireplace, keeping them in the bedroom with the door closed, and go back out into freaking Backdraft to figure out what the hell to do next.
Lacking other options, I grabbed the copper fire pit and dragged it within a reasonable distance to the house--not so close that the house will catch, but close enough I can get there in a hot hurry--and then one by one, snatch up the cheerfully-burning logs with the tongs and run them outside, dropping them into the fire pit. I looked up and saw Ez looking out my bedroom window, mouthing, "NO MORE FIRES FOR YOU! YOU ARE VERY BAD AT THIS!" Pet was shaking her fists, yelling, "No Mommy fire! Mommy make BAD FIRE!"
The fire was actually pretty good, I feel compelled to say. It was the smoke that was the problem.
So it took about 40 minutes to clear the house completely of the smoke, once I figured out the appropriate combination of yanking and voodoo that actually opens the flue.
On the upside, I didn't actually burn anything that wasn't supposed to burn, and didn't have to call the authorities, which would have been horribly embarrassing.
I went outside to check on my smouldering logs in the fire pit a little while ago, and overheard people walking around the block and talking. "Mmm, smells like someone has a fire," one said.
And how.
I said, "Camp fire, forest fire, house fire, big fire, little fire."
Those were not the right answers. Apparently they wanted answers about something involving log configuration. I was also wrong with my answer to "What do you call the test where you can run your hands through the ashes of your campfire to make sure it is out?" and I said "Stupid."
It's cold out there tonight, and since P's driving the party bus home from soccer, he isn't here. I decided I'd seen people light fires plenty of times and it doesn't look that hard, right?
So I built myself a little log pile and set to lighting some kindling. I pulled on the damper chain and soon my wee fire was roaring beautifully.
Since I was sitting on the floor and smoke rises, I didn't realize until Ez asked from his perch on the sofa, "Is it supposed to smoke that much?"
The answer, my friends, is no. No, it is not. Or if it is, that smoke is supposed to float gently up the chimney.
Which it wasn't doing. At all. I fruitlessly yanked the chain again while the house filled with smoke. And when I say "filled with smoke," I mean, soon became a thick blanket of black smoke churning through the whole house. It was like something out of a damn movie.
I ushered Ez and Pet to my non-smoky bedroom with strict instructions to stay put, and started flinging open windows and doors and turning on fans. Since it's in the forties outside, my house was now freezing in addition to being smoky. My eyes started stinging and burning and tears were flowing, and the smoke detector goes off with it's screeching at the same time Ez starts screaming for me. I ran upstairs and turned off the alarm--yes, infernal beeping, I KNOW the house is smoky--and run back down with my tear-streaked face to find Ez and Pet huddled on my bed like Dickensian orphans, Pet's nose gushing blood because she crashed into the bed. So, I clean up Pet while the smoke is still billowing out of the fireplace, keeping them in the bedroom with the door closed, and go back out into freaking Backdraft to figure out what the hell to do next.
Lacking other options, I grabbed the copper fire pit and dragged it within a reasonable distance to the house--not so close that the house will catch, but close enough I can get there in a hot hurry--and then one by one, snatch up the cheerfully-burning logs with the tongs and run them outside, dropping them into the fire pit. I looked up and saw Ez looking out my bedroom window, mouthing, "NO MORE FIRES FOR YOU! YOU ARE VERY BAD AT THIS!" Pet was shaking her fists, yelling, "No Mommy fire! Mommy make BAD FIRE!"
The fire was actually pretty good, I feel compelled to say. It was the smoke that was the problem.
So it took about 40 minutes to clear the house completely of the smoke, once I figured out the appropriate combination of yanking and voodoo that actually opens the flue.
On the upside, I didn't actually burn anything that wasn't supposed to burn, and didn't have to call the authorities, which would have been horribly embarrassing.
I went outside to check on my smouldering logs in the fire pit a little while ago, and overheard people walking around the block and talking. "Mmm, smells like someone has a fire," one said.
And how.