Conclusion

I have been putting off writing what happened the last few days of Sarah and Lily's vacation. In part I haven't written because we have been so busy with insurance and other issues, but also because, well, it is just really embarrassing.

So on Friday I got home from work pretty early. There had been enough adventure in my life over the previous nine days to pretty much quench my thirst for that type of thing forever, which is why I decided I would cut my loses and not to anything that could get me into more trouble while Sarah was gone.

So after a a dinner of Cheerios with water on them (in case you forgot the power has been out in the house for a few days. I initially poured milk on my Cheerios, but the milk was bad. So after one bite, which led to a full body convulsion when my tongue realized what was going on, which then resulted in a mouth full of cheerios and spoiled milk being plastered across the walls, counter tops and floor of the kitchen, this led to several glasses of water, and extensive teeth brushing before I was brave enough to give another bowl of Cheerios, this time without milk a try) I went out to mow the lawn.

The lawn was mowed without incident. Well, there was one minor incident. I spilled some gas on my shirt as I was filling up the mower, but no big deal right? Now all I had to do was sit inside and wait until Saturday and 10 pm for Sarah to get home. It seemed like my nightmare was about to end. Now I don't know how many of you have sat around without power for extended periods of time, but it gets boring pretty quick. What to do, what to do? I walked around the house for a bit looking for anything that could occupy my time for a few hours until I could go to sleep. There was nothing to do. Finally I decided I couldn't get into too much trouble if I just read a book. It was getting a bit dark by now so I went out on my front porch to read. Before I knew it, it was too dark to read, but now I was interested in what was going on in the book. I had to find out what would happen to Bella and Edward, er I mean I had to find out how Paul Volker was able to pull the country out of Carter era economic stagflation.

Ok, so I can't lie, I was actually reading Twilight. But, to my defense it was horrible. I mean, Bella's only perceivable strength is her blood smells good! What is that?! I mean she isn't all that smart, or popular or interesting or even pretty. She can't even seem to walk a straight line without falling down! Why, why would anyone be interested in her?!

But I digress... So it is too dark to read anymore of this stupid book, but I am hooked now, I can't stop. Twilight is like crack, highly addictive and absolute napalm for your brain. This napalm effect is what I attribute the next sequence of decisions to.

With new purpose I walk inside the house, I must find some sort of luminary device so I can finish this stupid book. I can't find any flash lights and the batteries in my headlamp are dead.

Ah what luck! I am able to find one of those aromatic candles people use around Christmas time. Any port in a storm, I guess. So I light the candle and am immediately over powered by the smell of cranberries and holly.

I set the candle on my night stand and open the book hoping that the next chapter will explain that Edward is actually a bad vampire and ends up killing Belle and moves back to Transylvania the end. But there are still way too many pages for that, and really, I am just not that lucky.

With the candle on the night stand the light is coming up from below the book, and thus the pages are obscured in shadow and unreadable. Still under the "twilight, aka napalm effect" I slowly perceive that to read by candle light the light must be shining down from above. My mind racing, I realize that the perfect solution for this is to balance the candle in the top of the head board leaning into the wall. After just a bit of maneuvering the candle is perfectly positioned over my reading area and leaning back just enough to touch the wall but still cast light on me. I settle in.

About one hundred pages later I am seeing that this book is not going to end well at all. It is definitely heading towards some sort of happy ending. I am not happy. I am also not comfortable. And strangely enough I have a craving for candy canes and some Bing Crosby Christmas music. Sitting in the same position for an hour is killing my neck and back. I do a quick little bounce on the bed to shift my position. This was a huge mistake.

As I adjusted my position the whole bad shook just enough to knock the candle from its precarious perch. It falls on my dumping wax all over my head. It also is able to light my shirt on fire, and thanks to the gas I spilled on my shirt earlier ignites at a surprisingly rapid rate. Despite my temporary blindness caused by candle wax hardening in my eyes I am able to get the shirt off with only minor singeing to my person. The problem is I now can not see where the burning shirt is.

I search in vain for it for about thirty seconds until I can feel the heat and even see the red glow around me and I realize I have caught the house on fire.

It is shockingly hard to get someone to call 911 for you when you are running around with red wax all down your face and in your eyes (which in retrospect probably looked like blood in the dark) and no shirt on. Eventually one of the neighbors did call 911, but it was too late. I burned the house down.

I guess insurance will cover most of the damages, and everyone was ok, but man, what a total disaster. We are stuck living in a motel until we can figure out what we are going to do for a new house, all my cool stuff got burned up, and the worst part of it, Sarah will never trust me again. It's like for the rest of our lives anytime I say "Just trust me Sarah" she can always come back with "Remember when I trusted you and your burned the house down." There is no response to that. For the rest of my life Sarah will always have the argument ender. That is unless I can some how get her to burn down an even better house...