Sunday, July 10, 2016

Help Weeding the Garden Box

If you have read any of my blog post you have probably figured out that when I was a teenager, I ran around with two other guys.  I have been calling them Sam and Houston to help protect their identities.  The three of us did a lot of stupid kid/teenager things back then but Houston would frequently take the cake in how "out there" his activities actually were.  Oddly enough, fire was usually involved.

This story does include fire and starts out with me trying to get out of the house on a Friday afternoon to go play basketball with my friends.  As I was running out the garage door mom yelled "Make sure you pull the weeds in the Flower box next to the garage before you go!"

In typical teenager fashion, it was the end of the world.  I was ready to go and have fun but Mom wanted to me pull weeds in the 2' x 2' garden box next to the garage door!  So for a job that would have taken all of 20 minutes, Sam and Houston decided to help me get done faster.  Houston said "We always burn the weeds around the fence posts when working on my buddies farm."  So that was that, we would burn the weeds and not have to get our hands dirty.

I got the lawn mower 5 gallon gas can and dumped about half of the full can of gas on the flower bed of weeds.  Houston began instructing us that we need to let the gas soak for a few minutes then we could light it and it would burn all the weeds.  The house would also be perfectly safe since it was a brick home and bricks don't burn.  I turned away from the garage and headed inside to warn my sister not to smoke around the side of the garage, since this was her favorite place to sneak smokes. when I hear a loud WOOOSH and Houston started yelling while Sam let out a shrill scream.

I turn around to see Houston running around the drive way with his pant leg on fire, the garden box consumed in flames that rise up the brick wall of the garage and are wrapping around the eaves and onto the roof of the house.  All the while Sam stands about 10' from the fire and continues to scream and alternate pointing at the house on fire and Houston still running around with his pants on fire!

I quickly ran around to the front of the house and grabbed the garden hose and drag it back to the garage.  By the time I get set up and start putting out the garden fire, Houston has remembered to stop drop and roll (and the gas on his pant leg had all burned off as well).  In just a few minutes we had the fire out and were catching our collective breath.

"What the H**L happened?" was my first question.
Houston turned to look at Sam and said " Well...I saw a spot of gas had dripped on the drive way.  The ant that was crawling across the drop looked like he need to a barbecue.  So I used my lighter and flicked it to see if the drop of gas would catch."  he finished sheepishly.

About that time a mini-van pulled up in the drive way and Houston's Mom got out.  She looked around and said that she saw the fire from her house up the street as she was getting home from work and knew Houston was involved and came down to help.

Lessons learned:

1.) Never go to Houston for advice on how to weed a garden box
2.) Fire is never the correct answer to the question of how to get work done quicker
3.) Sam does a very convincing damsel in distress scream
4.) Mom will make you repaint the eaves of the house if you attempt to burn the garage down
5.) You can't play basketball if you are repainting the eaves of the house
6.) The fire did get rid of all the weeds


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