whacked with. My dad could be a very frightening man when he was angry.His face would change and he’d look like a completely different person. He had a temper like a bull in a ring. In this particular case, though, I don’t blame him for being angry. I could have burned our house down.
I still love wooden matches. I always feel compelled to buy them when I am in Home Depot. What the cavemen wouldn’t have done for a box of wooden matches. They probably would have torched the planet and I wouldn’t be here writing this.
Me + fire = the end of the world = arse welts
You’d think I would have learned from the vent incident and the subsequent spanking that I shouldn’t be playing with fire, but oh no, not me. My arson phase was just getting under way. I proceeded to burn down a very large hedge at a house around the corner from where we lived, and almost lit their garage on fire. I remember the woman who lived there came screaming out of her back door wrestling with the garden hose and dousing the rather large flames that were now burning with great gusto. It was really scary.
All I could think of was how mad my dad was going to be and that I had better put a phone book between my dad and my bum. I don’t think I could sit down for a week after that spanking. My parents didn’t know quite what to do with me. I was officially an arsonist. I have to give it to my mom, though, because she always managed to disarm terrible situations for me. She told me that the big fat woman who came charging out of her back door wielding a water hose was horrible and mean and a lousy babysitter, and that at least it was her garage that I almost burned down and not some nice person’s. My mom made me feel vindicated somehow, though she didn’t tell me that in front of my dad …
I am sure I would not be alive to write these words had I burnedthat large woman’s garage down. My father would surely have killed me or at least pulled the arms from my body so I couldn’t strike matches anymore. He’d send them to the Masai people in Africa to feed to their goats. I really don’t blame him for being mad. Burning down my own house was one thing, but burning down the large lady’s house was another thing entirely.
The whole crazy relationship with the matches didn’t last long, thankfully. I am glad I didn’t become Drew Barrymore in
Firestarter
, but I came pretty close. I have no idea what got into me those weird few weeks. I was just obsessed with watching the sulphur end burst into a little ball of fire. It was instant gratification at its best. I am now one of those people who plays with candle wax in restaurants, although I am trying to curb my enthusiasm for that. Thank God they hadn’t invented disposable Bic lighters in the sixties or the whole city of Calgary would have been long gone by 1970. Perhaps even the entire country of Canada. My dad had a Zippo lighter, but he was smart enough to keep it in a safety deposit box buried somewhere in the backyard.
My friend Gary was such a good boy that he didn’t come anywhere near me during my
Firestarter
phase. I didn’t want to incriminate him anyway. I don’t think he even knew that I had been buying matches and burning things down. He was still an angel in my parents’ eyes, and I was encouraged at every turn to colour with him. Davey, the boy who made me play in garbage cans, thereby contracting the worms that required the Scotch tape bum worm removal, was my accomplice during the Eddylite Easy Strike period of my childhood. In fact, Davey was the one who thought that the burning of the hedge would be very controllable and that we would not be caught, never, ever! Yeah, sure.
One thing I learned very early on is that boys can be dumb liars, so don’t believe a thing they tell you. Davey was quite thecharacter. We should have had our own reality show, if only we had known what those were back then. Our show would have been called
Jann and Davey Plus Crazy
. I might have
I still love wooden matches. I always feel compelled to buy them when I am in Home Depot. What the cavemen wouldn’t have done for a box of wooden matches. They probably would have torched the planet and I wouldn’t be here writing this.
Me + fire = the end of the world = arse welts
You’d think I would have learned from the vent incident and the subsequent spanking that I shouldn’t be playing with fire, but oh no, not me. My arson phase was just getting under way. I proceeded to burn down a very large hedge at a house around the corner from where we lived, and almost lit their garage on fire. I remember the woman who lived there came screaming out of her back door wrestling with the garden hose and dousing the rather large flames that were now burning with great gusto. It was really scary.
All I could think of was how mad my dad was going to be and that I had better put a phone book between my dad and my bum. I don’t think I could sit down for a week after that spanking. My parents didn’t know quite what to do with me. I was officially an arsonist. I have to give it to my mom, though, because she always managed to disarm terrible situations for me. She told me that the big fat woman who came charging out of her back door wielding a water hose was horrible and mean and a lousy babysitter, and that at least it was her garage that I almost burned down and not some nice person’s. My mom made me feel vindicated somehow, though she didn’t tell me that in front of my dad …
I am sure I would not be alive to write these words had I burnedthat large woman’s garage down. My father would surely have killed me or at least pulled the arms from my body so I couldn’t strike matches anymore. He’d send them to the Masai people in Africa to feed to their goats. I really don’t blame him for being mad. Burning down my own house was one thing, but burning down the large lady’s house was another thing entirely.
The whole crazy relationship with the matches didn’t last long, thankfully. I am glad I didn’t become Drew Barrymore in
Firestarter
, but I came pretty close. I have no idea what got into me those weird few weeks. I was just obsessed with watching the sulphur end burst into a little ball of fire. It was instant gratification at its best. I am now one of those people who plays with candle wax in restaurants, although I am trying to curb my enthusiasm for that. Thank God they hadn’t invented disposable Bic lighters in the sixties or the whole city of Calgary would have been long gone by 1970. Perhaps even the entire country of Canada. My dad had a Zippo lighter, but he was smart enough to keep it in a safety deposit box buried somewhere in the backyard.
My friend Gary was such a good boy that he didn’t come anywhere near me during my
Firestarter
phase. I didn’t want to incriminate him anyway. I don’t think he even knew that I had been buying matches and burning things down. He was still an angel in my parents’ eyes, and I was encouraged at every turn to colour with him. Davey, the boy who made me play in garbage cans, thereby contracting the worms that required the Scotch tape bum worm removal, was my accomplice during the Eddylite Easy Strike period of my childhood. In fact, Davey was the one who thought that the burning of the hedge would be very controllable and that we would not be caught, never, ever! Yeah, sure.
One thing I learned very early on is that boys can be dumb liars, so don’t believe a thing they tell you. Davey was quite thecharacter. We should have had our own reality show, if only we had known what those were back then. Our show would have been called
Jann and Davey Plus Crazy
. I might have
Similar Books
