The July Fourth Fire.

So I've been moping lately, mostly out of boredom. And here I was, moping, trying to think of something to do when I realized that I hadn't blogged in a long time. Also, I hadn't ever written out the story of the July Fourth fire, which is even more important since my blog was originally used to tell stories of ridiculous situations in which I found myself.

So this July Fourth, Mike and I invited over our friends, Leah, Daniel, and Kate, and Leah and Daniel brought their friends, Nelisa and Nelisa's boyfriend whose name I do not remember.  Anyways, we spent alot of time sitting in the living room socializing. To make socializing time better, we had locked the cat in the bedroom since he is really annoying and I think someone was probably allergic to him (wish it was me.)

Anyways, Mike went back to use the bathroom or something, maybe just to check on Max since Mike worries about things like that. The rest of us are sitting there when suddenly this awful, ear piercing electronic shriek starts piercing the air. My first guess was that the security system that we had unplugged (because it made, loud, annoying shrieks) had started up. In the few seconds it took us to look at each other confused with our hands over our ears, Mike comes running down the hallway at top speed.

Now, before I continue, flashback to two hours prior, when I had candles in very tall jars around the house to make it smell less like cat and more like mangoes. I decided to leave one lit in the bedroom, thinking nothing bad could happen while we were still home. While doing some last minute cleaning, I put a stack of towels on the dresser next to the candle.

Back to Mike barreling down the hallway. He yells something. "WHAT?!?" we all reply. Mike's response was something along the lines of  "THERE'S A FIRE!" (though it may have involved some words that I don't feel comfortable writing in this blog.) Mike then ran to the kitchen and began looking through the cabinets.

Me, always keeping a calm head in the face of disaster, yelled at everyone to get outside (I think this is what I did, I honestly probably did no such thing and they were smart enough to go outside on their own.) Assuming Mike was looking for the fire extinguisher (I found out later he was looking for a large-ish glass to fill with water, since he doesn't keep his head in the face of danger,) I ran to help. And went straight for it under the sink. Then Mike, Kate, and I ran to the bedroom. The fire was fairly small and situated on top of the big dresser. Our lovely cat knocked the pile of towels in such a way that they fell into the candle jar and ignited. If it weren't so small, I probably would have run away. As it was, it was large enough that I forgot to take a picture with my iPhone, a detail that pains me to this day.

Because the smoke detector is ridiculously loud, I know there was alot of yelling at the top of our lungs. I'm not sure what Kate and Mike were saying, but I know I was saying, "I CAN'T GET THE PIN OUT OF THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER!" Kate poured some water on the fire, and I think Mike was just yelling at the fire. Anyways, about ten seconds later, I got the pin out of the fire extinguisher and covered everything within a ten foot radius in a pile of thick yellowish powder. (I always thought they blew out a gas that extinguished the fire. Wrong. It is a messy, messy powder.)

Unfortunately, extinguishing the fire didn't help, since the fire alarm was still making our ears bleed, so I had to remove the battery. Mike found Max (hiding under the bed) and we all went outside to find everyone else, none of whom had called 911 (thankfully.) I collapsed on the ground and let out a noise between laughing and crazy from the adrenaline still coursing through my system.

And that is the story of the July Fourth Fire.