Getting into mischief.

So yesterday, I went into the office, planning on staying a little late to have fried fish and knit with my pals, when Jeremy calls me and asks if I have a minute to talk…

Jeremy was working from home yesterday and at about 4:30 in the afternoon he’s on a conference call. Eliana’s downstairs taking care of Edda. Vince, as usual, is running back and forth between the neighbor’s house and playing with kids outside and inside.

DSC_0041

As Jeremy’s talking on the phone, he notices from the 2nd story window that there appears to be a small fire in the backyard. He doesn’t see anyone around it and it’s near the huge pile of leaves and bushes and brambles that we have in the backyard so he goes downstairs (while still on the call) and grabs the kitchen fire extinguisher and heads out to the backyard. As he’s headed out, he can see that it really is a fire, tells the guy on the call that he’s gotta go and heads out to put out the fire.

When he gets there, he finds Vince and a few pals, kind of huddled around under a bush and yeah, trying manage their little fire. The fire they decided to build to make some s’mores! Right next to a pile of leaves, because, hey what burns better than some dried leaves!!! They basically had taken matches from the kitchen and headed outside to start the fire (oh, they also had a half full bag of mini marshmallows). Jeremy estimated that the charred ground was about 12-18 inches in diameter. We were very lucky that Jeremy just happened to look out the window when he did, otherwise, I shudder to think what would have happened if the fire had spread more than it did.

Vince was grounded today and got a stern talking to about fire safety. And we have to find a better hiding place for the matches. And we need to get a new fire extinguisher because the old one now is totally used up.

It is noted that when I tell this story to pals, all the boys or parents of boys all say, oh yeah, I remember when I or my kids did that. Actually, Jeremy was laughing a little when he called me at work because he clearly remembers almost setting their living room on fire when he was Vince’s age. And all the girls and parents of only girls were like, oh that’s funny, that never happened at our house… Ha! This has been a crazy week already, throw in a little (or big) fire drama and now I’m basically completely toasted.

3 thoughts on “Getting into mischief.”

  1. Wow. I gather Don never did that? Bryan keeps telling me how our son is going to want to throw rocks at windows and hit things with sticks. I can't wait.

  2. Oh Doris, what a great post. I mean, I'm sure it wasn't funny at the time – and I'm so glad it ended safely – but this is such a priceless family story. Poor Vince is going to be hearing about this at every holiday and family gathering for years!

Leave a Reply