Playing With Fire

My sister and I were pretty independent kids. We had to be, since mom came home from work at about 6 o'clock at night. We were intelligent and well behaved. We knew when something was a bad idea. But knowing a thing and heeding your own advice on it are two entirely different things. As a result, my sister and I made some mistakes.

Most were minor, like putting a roast in the oven and then going outside to play. That's how I learned meat shrinks, just like in the cartoons, when you let it cook for too long. Minor disasters included letting the tub overflow, ignoring the dog when she needs to go outside, and hiding crackers in the sofa -so mom wouldn't know you were eating junk. (side note: A box of crackers at Tru-Buy was 44 cents. That's some cheap eats, there. I ate a lot of crackers)

Sometimes, however, my sister and I made some major mistakes. We snuck out of the house and bet on the drunks leaving the bar. We went joyriding with people we barely knew, and once, we set the recliner on fire. It was a complete accident, of course. Neither of us were stupid enough to burn the furniture on purpose.

We were bored. So we invented a game. We had seen a commercial for a game where you remove pieces from a board until the central piece falls. Whoever makes the thing fall, loses. So we got a bowl full of water and covered it with plastic wrap. We put a penny in the center of the plastic wrap, and then we did the stupid thing. We swiped a pack of mom's cigarettes. The idea was to take turns burning holes in the plastic until the penny fell through. The water was insurance, because we were playing with fire. See how smart we were? It worked so well, we invited some friends to play the next day. We played again the day after. By this time, we were confident in our ability to control the cigarettes we were playing with. Puff puff puff on the cigarette until the end glows bright red, flick off the excess ashes and burn a neat hole in the plastic wrap.

It was my fault. I accidentally hit the cigarette on the edge of the bowl and knocked the cherry loose. I pulled my hand back to drop the cigarette in the ashtray, and the cherry flew up over my head and landed on the recliner. I grabbed a pillow and batted at the spot it had hit. Everyone surveyed the char hole, and we prayed that mom wouldn't notice. We were a little shook up at the near miss, but went back to playing the game. The room was full of cigarette smoke, but it was even smokier by the recliner. As a matter of fact, there was a lot of smoke coming from the burned spot that I thought I'd put out. One of the players declared, "The chair is on fire!" I turned to look, and sure enough; there was flame coming from the corner of the recliner. I grabbed the bowl of water and dumped it on the chair, plastic wrap and all. I either missed the spot, or it wasn't enough water. Everybody both ran to the kitchen for cups of water.
We dumped cup after cup of water on that poor old recliner. It seemed to take forever to stop smoldering, but eventually it did.
Our friends decided it was time to go home. The game wasn't fun anymore. We walked them to the stairs and said goodbye, then went to clean up the cigarette game. There was a nasty smell in the living room. We sprayed Lysol all over the chair, and that helped a bit. It was summer time, so the windows were already open; that helped more.
I blotted at the soggy recliner with towels. When I ran out, I used my winter clothes. I cried as I tried to soak up the water. I knew I was in such deep trouble that I couldn't even imagine what mom would say or do. To give her credit, my sister could have stood there telling me how much trouble I was in, but she didn't. She silently helped me clean up the mess.

Once the chair was as dry as we could make it, we covered it with an ugly orange blanket. When mom came home, we told her we had re-decorated, and showed her the new recliner cover. This was the moment of truth. Mom knows everything. Mom would certainly know the chair had been burned. How could she not know? One whole corner was missing. The house reeked of burned fabric and cigarette smoke. She must know. I was just waiting for the axe to fall.

The fates smiled on me that day. Mom must have been exhausted from work, or something. She declared that it was just lovely, told us she was going to take a nap, and asked if we could make dinner.

Months later, when she took the throw off to wash it, she saw the damage and asked what had happened. I fessed up to playing with some matches and accidentally burning the recliner. She said, "Well that was stupid. Thank God you're both ok." And later she commented, "I'm glad I have such smart daughters. You kept your heads, and I'm proud of you."

Go figure.