Out of the Fire

Yesterday, something very memorable happened. I woke up and went to play Sims 2 as I usually do on Spring Break. I had woken up fairly late already and quickly became hungry for breakfast. I went into my mom's room and I offered to make these really good biscuits we have a mix for. I went downstairs, turned on the oven to preheat, made the dough, and sat on the couch with the paper. I realized that today's sudoku looked really easy so I got up to grab a pen. As walked over to our cup that has the pens and pencils and quickly noticed there was a fire in our oven. It was sparking and it was something I've never seen before. The only kind of fire I've ever seen in real life were campfires and in fireplaces. I quickly called down my mom with the fire looking more sinister by the second. We both didn't know what to do because we didn't want to open the oven in case the oxygen fueled the fire. I shut our cat in my room so she couldn't be harmed. Every time the fire looked like it would die down it would just spark up again and get even scarier. My mom told me to get the fire extinguisher so I ran downstairs and grabbed both of them. My mom decided to open up the oven and try to extinguish the fire. I took a couple of steps back and watched as my mom opened the oven door and clouds of white stuff came out of the fire extinguisher. It hit the back of the oven and came right back at us. I fell to the ground thinking it was smoke with my mouth open. Let me tell you something. Fire extinguishers taste DISGUSTING. All of a sudden it was everywhere. I heard my mom yell at me to open the back door so I ran to do that but with every gasp of breath I inhaled more of the white powder.

Even after all this commotion, the fire didn't go out. We finally wised up and called the fire department. I went out in the back and spit out as much as I could of the crap. It felt like it was everywhere in my system. I could see it on my clothes and on my hands. Even when I was breathing outside of the house I could feel it in my nose. The fire went out by the time the fire department came. Three firetrucks came. It was the weirdest feeling, hearing the sirens and thinking, they're coming for us. Of course my mom and I were both in our pajamas and I was wearing my I Have Issues shirt. When they came the men were all business. They shut off the power to the oven and explained to us that the fire and burnt the coil in half. After that they brought in this mega-power fan and tried to blow out the white powder that was covering everything on the first floor. In a matter of minutes some disgusting creepo called us asking if we had had a fire. He identified himself as a worker from some restoration company. The firemen gave us an after the fire brochure and gave us basic instructions. You know how people say when something major happens, it takes time to sink in? Not this time. The second the trucks drove away my mom and I had already gotten past it and we started thinking about the future. My mom went all adult and started calling the insurance companies and such. It was rough, weird day. I can't say that I learned a lesson from this or anything except to get a fire alarm in our kitchen which I had complained about to my parents before this happened. And maybe to call the fire department sooner. I think I'll forever have the image of the white clouds filling the room imprinted in my mind.

Fire has always interested but (hopefully) not in a creepy way. It is so absolutely gorgeous but it is a destroyer. In most, well everything, there is two sides. But fire does not create, only destroys. Maybe that's why it interests me. But when I was scared of the fire it did not look gorgeous or beautiful. It looked malicious and threatening. I think that can be said about a lot of things. Well now I'm really off topic but I think it had to be said. As I sit in a library typing this, waiting for the cleaners to remove the white powder from our house, I can only think of what's ahead and how much worse it could have been.