Pyrotechnical Difficulties

Straight up- what is is with boys and fire?

It's a mystery to me as I grew up in a family dominated by females and we never, ever played with matches, lighters, fireworks or things that smoked as a means of afternoon amusement. Well, maybe one or two things that smoked, but we certainly had no interest in tall, hot, dangerous flames that were capable of destroying things. That would be wrong, and well, just downright destructive.

On Sunday evening we came home from Las Vegas to find out that our two oldest boys and a couple of buddies succeeded in hosting an all out bonfire in our garage complete with hot dogs and marshmallows. No, we did not leave them home alone as you may suspect; our very capable and responsible sitter was inside playing with our three year old while the older boys were supposed to be innocently playing outside in the snow when she began to smell smoke...

Now, I am not naive. I knew what I was getting into with three boys- a little athletes foot, a bag full of rank hockey equipment, a couple of chipped teeth, inappropriate language. Big deal, right? But FIRE!? I have to admit after arriving home (to a very smoky smelling house I might add) and hearing about "the campfire" it was the first time I have had serious heart pumping, hand sweating terror about my kids encountering true danger. Suffice it to say, I lost my marbles. Completely L-O-S-T my marbles people!! Gone. I am rarely at a loss for words, and let me tell you those two boys of mine ripped every last word, thought, syllable, and sound out of my brain and lit 'em all with a match. This Mom was, for the very first time, utterly speechless.

SO, I ask the question again....what is it about a boy's fascination with flames? Is it the unpredictability of what might go down once these flames jump to the tanks of boat gas or stacks of cardboard that litter my garage? Or is it the adrenaline rush of seeing a wooden boat reduced to a pile of polyurethane matchsticks? Kill me now for putting this out there fellas, but this situation totally proves the caveman theory to me. How many female arsonists have you heard of before? Yeah, exactly.

Fire at it's core is so primitive, primordial; the ultimate symbol of a survivalist instinct. Translation for my fellow male readership- you're all so taken with the hot, red/blue/green flames dancing up and down that you don't even think of the friggin' consequences that this stuff can cause!!! For a quick moment, Mr. C shot me a little sideways glance as if to say, "what's the big deal?" when I started to go all ballistic on the kids about fire safety. Why was it not his first instinct to yell at the top of his lungs "you could have blown up the fucking house you little morons!" It certainly was mine, and I am not even the Cub Scout leader in this family.

Just sayin'...

Burning Man Festival in Black Rock Desert, Nevada

Apparently good old fashioned fun with fire isn't just for little kids...

I now have had a few days to digest the pyrotechnic activity that took place in my garage this past weekend, and I can say that I am now able to chuckle (slightly) about the incident. Given it was a group of boys between the ages of 6 and 11 (research says this is the prime age group to be tantalized by flames) and no objects, small animals or younger brothers were burned at the stake, this really seems to be a textbook example of young male behavior and an innocent, normal fascination with fire.

YIKES!

Gotta love my little cavemen.