Paths to Maturity and the Role of Fireballs, part I

You know how musicians, over the course of their careers, tire of playing the songs from their early days? How authors stop talking about the same things they did when they were younger? How actors bore of answering the same old questions that they’ve been plagued with since they first hit the scene? You can feel the analogy coming, no? Well, for the umpteenth time I was asked, yesterday, to painfully relive the moments surrounding my now (amazingly) legendary two week trip to the Grossman Burn Center in beautiful Van Nuys, California. Sighing deeply as I launched into a spirited-as-possible retelling, I decided it was high time I recorded this tale in lurid and detailed fashion in hopes of warding off future tellings. Needless to say, with this only the fourth blog entry (and really just the second, thematically), such an early excavation of the memory archives is an ominous warning about its longevity. Alas, we will live in the moment. Err, the past moment…

But first, some background. Its early into my undergraduate years at UCLA and over one summer my pal Patrick and I were hanging out at my parent’s house wondering how on earth to entertain ourselves. We were, of course, still too young to buy alcohol, or this story never would have happened. Striving to cure our mental lethargy, Pat launches into hysterics (as is his style) over the revelation he had had at college concerning non-dairy creamer. I will summarize: Non-dairy creamer, in powder form, has unusually combustive properties.

The Burninator

Now, this isn’t in any way due to its chemical makeup, for if you throw an open flame into a pile of it on the floor, nothing will happen. However, its physical composition is another matter. When thrown into the air, the particular density of the particles of powder that disperse, slowly returning to earth, are highly flammable. This is also the case with other household items, such as flour, certain grains, and sawdust. In any case, Pat chooses to go with the creamer and the next thing I know we are standing in the middle of the street, him with a can of creamer and me with an improvised newspaper-torch thingy. It had all the makings of a dark ritual, so luckily nobody was driving on the road at the time. I light up My First Torch© and hold it out towards Pat in the way that kids hold road kill when they are carrying it home for their friends to see. In one swift motion Pat sends the 12 ounces of canned hell airborne in my direction. In what is a seeming blur of excitement and grandeur, a mini-fireball lights up the dark avenue and Pat and I run, laughing our asses off, back up my driveway, having dropped the still-lit torch in the middle of the road. Something is burning my arm, though, and as I look down I realize that some of the flaming matter has landed on my shirt sleeve and left a strange, chemical-like burning mass. I ditch the shirt and disregard this portentous omen (Nope, this isn’t the hospital story yet.). About five minutes pass before a police car shows up and while Pat and I observe from the shadows, he uses his fire-extinguisher-of-no-fun to douse the still burning flame and a shovel to move the mass into his trunk. Though Pat and I consider getting another can of creamer, the thrill is gone and one boring night succeeds another until the summer becomes the school year. Somewhere inside me, though, a memory of semi-controlled fire lingers...

Continued in Part II