Fire!
I was thinking today about the things we (my siblings and I) did as kids. There are three things I don't suppose I will ever fully know the answer to:
1. How did we manage to never burn the house down?
2. How did we survive?
3. How did our parents survive?
Allow me to illustrate with the titles to some potentially wonderful stories. My family will smile fondly at the memories.
a) Frozen Hash Browns are Not Toastable
b) The Green Chair, the Heating Pad, and My First Lesson in Spontaneous Combustion
c) Matches and My Second Lesson in Spontaneous Combustion
d) Glow Sticks (Where by "Sticks" I Mean Those Things That Grown on Trees)
Ok. Now I have to tell them.
Frozen Hashbrowns are Not Toastable
My father's favorite food is potatoes. He is of the opinion that they are their own food group. I'm sure he believes that the Israelites were actually fed potatoes as they wandered the desert. One of the gazillion forms of potatoes he likes are hashbrowns. We almost always had frozen hashbrowns in the freezer growing up. You know the ones that they serve at MickyD's? That kind. Well, being the industrious (and lazy) child that I was, I discovered that a frozen hashbrown can be removed from the freezer and plopped in the toaster — thawing not necessary — push down the lever and minutes later *tada!* perfectly cooked hashbrowns. An added bonus was they were less greasy than when you cooked them on the stove.
Being kind and generous (in addition to industrious) I shared this knowledge around. Mumsy was actually quite proud of my discovery. It rapidly became the way to cook hashbrowns. Want a hashbrown? Toast it! One morning we were gathered in the kitchen for breakfast, waiting as Mumsy toasted our hashbrowns, when all of the sudden the toaster caught on fire! She quickly grabbed the baking soda and doused the flames. Tragically, two things came out of that: an unusable toaster, and the realization that hashbrowns are not toastable! (For the curious, the grease from all of those hashbrown had dripped down into the catch plate, and built up until they were close enough to the filament that when it got hot it lit the grease on fire.)
The Green Chair, the Heating Pad, and My First Lesson in Spontaneous Combustion
We had an ugly green reclining chair in our living room. We also had a heating pad. It was highly desirous to be the one sitting in the ugly green chair with the heating pad. Especially in the winter.
One autumn day my brother was the one lucky enough to have the chair/heating pad combination as we played in the living room. The play eventually moved to other parts of the house, and hours later we discovered, in a rather shocking way, that he had, apparently, left the heating pad on! The discovery was made when we heard that familiar sound of something catching on fire and ran into the living room to see what that something was. When we saw the flames hungrily eating away at the ugly green chair we sprang into action. My sisters and brother hauled the chair out to the front yard while I dashed to the kitchen to get the backing powder I had seen Mumsy use (ever so recently) to douse an unnamed kitchen fire *cough*toaster*cough*. I ran out side after them and poured the baking powder all over the seat of the chair - or rather, the cavern in the chair where the seat used to be - and any other place the flame had touched.
We waited nervously for our parents to get home. When they did there was no use hiding what had happened. The chair was decidedly not in the living room, and was quite visibly residing in its new home in the front yard; there was white powder leading a trail from the kitchen to said chair; and there was a cavern in the middle of the new "lawn chair". When asked we told the story just like it happened. When we reached the end I was sure we were going to get the proverbial "it". Instead, Mumsy seemed almost proud of our actions. I guess her rationale was: how were we supposed to know the heating pad would spontaneously combust? And, at the end of the day, we had reacted in the smartest way possible, considering the circumstances. She now knew for a certainty exactly how we would react in case anything in the house ever caught fire.
Matches and My Second Lesson in Spontaneous Combustion
For those of you who are unsure if I come by my granola nature honestly, let these next two stories assure you that I have.
Growing up we lived in a very cold place. The kind of place where it snows in the winter. A lot. The kind of place where the schools would have snow days because the buses couldn't make it up the mountain. We also had no central air/heating. Our central heating came in the form of a wood burning stove. Not a fire place, a stove. There is a difference. Fire places are pretty and for decoration. Wood burning stoves are for heat and cooking on top of. We used our stove all winter long. You could always tell if someone was home based on how much smoke was coming out of the chimney.
One night I was asked to light the fire while everyone else helped get dinner on the table, and so I did. It wasn't much of a task, really. I guess you could say it would be akin to asking the kid to turn up the thermostat. It was easy, it was route, we could probably do it in our sleep. This time, however, I did something I had never done before: I put the (full) box of matches on top of the stove and headed into the kitchen for dinner.
Ten minutes into dinner we heard the most amazing sound. I don't think I could describe it, except to say, it sounded like 500 matches all being lit at once. When we investigated the problem we discovered that there was a reason it sounded like that. It would appear, that setting matches on top of a wood burning stove is not quite the best way to go about storing them. I don't remember how we put it out. Maybe water, but that seems too dangerous, since you wouldn't want scalding water flying off the stove. Perhaps it was a bucket of sand... Frankly, Mumsy or Dad put it out, so I don't know.
Needless to say, we never left matches on the stove again.
Lastly:
Glow Sticks (Where by "Sticks" I Mean Those Things That Grown on Trees)
When camping we were allowed to light the end of sticks on fire, blow out the flame, and play with the glowing end of the stick in the night air. So long as all activity remained in the cleared area immediately around the fire, and was relatively safe.
I don't think Mumsy ever knew that we used to do it at home, too. In the house. With all the lights off for a better effect.
There you have it folks four little stories that all point to the leading three questions. The biggest one being: How did we never burn the house down?
1. How did we manage to never burn the house down?
2. How did we survive?
3. How did our parents survive?
Allow me to illustrate with the titles to some potentially wonderful stories. My family will smile fondly at the memories.
a) Frozen Hash Browns are Not Toastable
b) The Green Chair, the Heating Pad, and My First Lesson in Spontaneous Combustion
c) Matches and My Second Lesson in Spontaneous Combustion
d) Glow Sticks (Where by "Sticks" I Mean Those Things That Grown on Trees)
Ok. Now I have to tell them.
Frozen Hashbrowns are Not Toastable
My father's favorite food is potatoes. He is of the opinion that they are their own food group. I'm sure he believes that the Israelites were actually fed potatoes as they wandered the desert. One of the gazillion forms of potatoes he likes are hashbrowns. We almost always had frozen hashbrowns in the freezer growing up. You know the ones that they serve at MickyD's? That kind. Well, being the industrious (and lazy) child that I was, I discovered that a frozen hashbrown can be removed from the freezer and plopped in the toaster — thawing not necessary — push down the lever and minutes later *tada!* perfectly cooked hashbrowns. An added bonus was they were less greasy than when you cooked them on the stove.
Being kind and generous (in addition to industrious) I shared this knowledge around. Mumsy was actually quite proud of my discovery. It rapidly became the way to cook hashbrowns. Want a hashbrown? Toast it! One morning we were gathered in the kitchen for breakfast, waiting as Mumsy toasted our hashbrowns, when all of the sudden the toaster caught on fire! She quickly grabbed the baking soda and doused the flames. Tragically, two things came out of that: an unusable toaster, and the realization that hashbrowns are not toastable! (For the curious, the grease from all of those hashbrown had dripped down into the catch plate, and built up until they were close enough to the filament that when it got hot it lit the grease on fire.)
The Green Chair, the Heating Pad, and My First Lesson in Spontaneous Combustion
We had an ugly green reclining chair in our living room. We also had a heating pad. It was highly desirous to be the one sitting in the ugly green chair with the heating pad. Especially in the winter.
One autumn day my brother was the one lucky enough to have the chair/heating pad combination as we played in the living room. The play eventually moved to other parts of the house, and hours later we discovered, in a rather shocking way, that he had, apparently, left the heating pad on! The discovery was made when we heard that familiar sound of something catching on fire and ran into the living room to see what that something was. When we saw the flames hungrily eating away at the ugly green chair we sprang into action. My sisters and brother hauled the chair out to the front yard while I dashed to the kitchen to get the backing powder I had seen Mumsy use (ever so recently) to douse an unnamed kitchen fire *cough*toaster*cough*. I ran out side after them and poured the baking powder all over the seat of the chair - or rather, the cavern in the chair where the seat used to be - and any other place the flame had touched.
We waited nervously for our parents to get home. When they did there was no use hiding what had happened. The chair was decidedly not in the living room, and was quite visibly residing in its new home in the front yard; there was white powder leading a trail from the kitchen to said chair; and there was a cavern in the middle of the new "lawn chair". When asked we told the story just like it happened. When we reached the end I was sure we were going to get the proverbial "it". Instead, Mumsy seemed almost proud of our actions. I guess her rationale was: how were we supposed to know the heating pad would spontaneously combust? And, at the end of the day, we had reacted in the smartest way possible, considering the circumstances. She now knew for a certainty exactly how we would react in case anything in the house ever caught fire.
Matches and My Second Lesson in Spontaneous Combustion
For those of you who are unsure if I come by my granola nature honestly, let these next two stories assure you that I have.
Growing up we lived in a very cold place. The kind of place where it snows in the winter. A lot. The kind of place where the schools would have snow days because the buses couldn't make it up the mountain. We also had no central air/heating. Our central heating came in the form of a wood burning stove. Not a fire place, a stove. There is a difference. Fire places are pretty and for decoration. Wood burning stoves are for heat and cooking on top of. We used our stove all winter long. You could always tell if someone was home based on how much smoke was coming out of the chimney.
One night I was asked to light the fire while everyone else helped get dinner on the table, and so I did. It wasn't much of a task, really. I guess you could say it would be akin to asking the kid to turn up the thermostat. It was easy, it was route, we could probably do it in our sleep. This time, however, I did something I had never done before: I put the (full) box of matches on top of the stove and headed into the kitchen for dinner.
Ten minutes into dinner we heard the most amazing sound. I don't think I could describe it, except to say, it sounded like 500 matches all being lit at once. When we investigated the problem we discovered that there was a reason it sounded like that. It would appear, that setting matches on top of a wood burning stove is not quite the best way to go about storing them. I don't remember how we put it out. Maybe water, but that seems too dangerous, since you wouldn't want scalding water flying off the stove. Perhaps it was a bucket of sand... Frankly, Mumsy or Dad put it out, so I don't know.
Needless to say, we never left matches on the stove again.
Lastly:
Glow Sticks (Where by "Sticks" I Mean Those Things That Grown on Trees)
When camping we were allowed to light the end of sticks on fire, blow out the flame, and play with the glowing end of the stick in the night air. So long as all activity remained in the cleared area immediately around the fire, and was relatively safe.
I don't think Mumsy ever knew that we used to do it at home, too. In the house. With all the lights off for a better effect.
There you have it folks four little stories that all point to the leading three questions. The biggest one being: How did we never burn the house down?
posted by granola girl at 8:11 pm
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