by Michael L Smith

Created on: April 15, 2008

This story always gets a laugh out of those lucky enough to read it or even better hear it. It happened in the late eighties, maybe 87' or 88', I think I was ten or eleven years old. I had just recently became a "latchkey kid". Now I'm not sure if I was ready to stay at home by myself but my hard working single mother didn't have much choice. To pay someone to watch me was just too expensive. Plus I was really smart and capable of handling most everything, but I was quite mischievous and troublesome.

So mom had left for work and I began my normal routine. I got myself some ingredients for breakfast. I got pancake mix, the kind you just add water, three eggs for scrambled eggs with cheese and three slices of real bacon(this is before the pre-cooked bacon in a box). So I make my breakfast and head to the living room for my cartoon routine; first it was G.I.Joe then on to Transformers and finally He-man Master of the Universe. All was normal. Everything was fine.

Then from the depths of my ADD(attention deficit disorder) came a thought. I thought that it would be a good time to play with a little fire. No big deal right? Wrong.

My mother had these decorative things in the living room. If you grew up in the eighties then I'm sure you've seen the wheat like stalks that go in a wicker basket simply for decoration. Well I had recently discovered fire and the idea of lighting things on fire was great as long as I thought I had everything under control. So being the genius I was I was pretty sure if I lit one of the wheat like branches that stemmed from the stalk it would just burn down slow like a wick. I had seen so many cartoons with Wild E Coyote and his Acme bombs and I was sure it would burn slow just like in the cartoons. I was wrong.

In the blink of an eye the entire thing was up in flames. I was stuck in fear for about twenty seconds as I watched the flames grow and climb the wall. There were three bookshelves filled with books up against the same wall. I knew I had to do something or not only would I burn up our home but also the other eleven families that lived in our apartment building. So I quickly decided that I had to try to put this fire out myself. Although I had been taught the exact opposite by local firemen who would come to my school to teach fire safety. They must not have known my momma. It was either put this out or face my mom. So..... I grabbed a huge bowl that we had used the night before to put popcorn in from the living room table and I

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