08/12/03’s illustrious band:

Cakeslide

Brought to you by my friend Fred and last weekend’s T’ai Chi retreat.

Fred is the father of three little boys age 6 and under, about whom he tells many hair-raising stories. One time, one of them called to him from the kitchen, “Daddy, what should I do with this?” Fred walked around the corner to find his son holding a roll of Bounty paper towels . . . which were on fire. He’d been investigating the stove.

Another time, Fred got a call from the next-door neighbor. One of the boys was urinating outside. Fred started to laugh it off, since little boys seem to enjoy answering nature’s call in the arms of Mother Nature herself. The neighbor didn’t think it was funny, though. The kid was standing at the top of the swingset slide, peeing over the fence into her yard.

My favorite from the most recent round of stories goes like this: One of the children had a birthday, complete with a blue birthday cake. Not much of the cake got eaten on the day itself, and the adults left it sitting on the kitchen counter.

The next day, Fred awoke to strange sounds and giggles -- not an unusual occurrence. When he went to investigate, he found that the boys had gotten into the cake. Instead of eating it, however, they had found that they could throw it down on the hardwood floor, take a run and bellyflop onto the mess, and slide from the kitchen all the way into the dining room.

Plenty of other stories got told around the campfire this weekend, too, many of them involving boys and fire. Some highlights:

• Some 10- and 11-year-old boys decided to put on a fire show for the neighborhood kids. Not wanting to get into trouble for it, they crowded all the kids into a garage and shut all the doors. Then somebody got the bright idea to light a big bowl of gas on fire. When they aimed a fire extinguisher at it, the stream of water (which is a no-no for a gas fire anyway) served only to push the bowl down the floor toward the audience. Kids started screaming and trying to get out, but the performers didn’t want them to tell their parents and get them in trouble, so they locked the doors. Eventually, though, someone got a door open, the kids escaped, and no one was injured.

  
  

• A guy had a clogged drain but no Drano, so he poured gas down the drain and dropped in a lit match. For the next 20 minutes, he wandered through the house listening to the sound of flames rushing through all the pipes. No injuries.

  
  

• Two girls walking in a park wondered what would happen if they set a small patch of grass aflame. The experiment quickly got out of control, and the fire too big for them to contain. The girls raced to the pond and brought back Coke cans full of water to pour on the blaze, but to no avail. Terrified, they finally managed to stamp out the flames, leaving a burnt patch dozens of yards wide. Knowing they would get into huge trouble if the police came, they prepared their story: The fire was set by a UFO that landed in the park. For weeks afterward they scoured the local paper for mention of the damage, but found none. No injuries.

  
  

• Here’s my tale, which I didn’t tell at the campfire . . . because I was saving it especially for you. One day in high school science lab, I couldn’t get my Bunsen burner lit and summoned the teacher for help. While he fiddled with the burner, I turned away to say something to my lab partner. Suddenly I heard the whoosh of igniting gas behind me and felt the heat. My usually safety-conscious teacher was aiming the jet right at me and my very long hair -- a honey-blonde curtain down to my waist, my pride and joy. Startled, I exclaimed, “Jesus!” and jumped back. I received a severe dressing down for taking the Lord’s name in vain . . . but no injuries.

  
  

Tell me your fire stories!

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