burning down the house

Great '80s tune. Bad Friday evening activity. Frustrated this evening by the March wind, I pulled our little charcoal grill around to the side of the house and made a windbreak by stacking two very large and heavy cardboard boxes. Titus and I went inside while the coals got hot.

About ten minutes later Ray came home from work. Very tired from a long day of cranking out stories, he was confused by the fact that he saw a cardboard box on top of the grill. Perhaps Alton Brown and the Food Network are to blame for his curious yet nonchalant reaction. Instead of doing anything about the burning box (which was also touching our house), he came inside and asked if it was supposed be like that. Later he said, "honestly, I thought it was some sort of homemade smoker you had devised after watching Alton Brown".

Well, I ran out to look at it, pulled the box off, ran back in to get a rug, and told Ray to to get some water. I did my best Smokey Bear routine, stomping out the flying bits of flaming cardboard and smothering larger chunks of the box with my rug. We burned about a two foot section of our yard, and ended up with a surprisingly small pile of ash in the drive.

We're glad it all was OK in the end. But MAN WERE WE BOTH DUMB! Ray and I honestly couldn't figure out who was dumber - me for setting cardboard boxes by an unattended burning grill adjacent to the house - or Ray for inspecting a fire and doing nothing about it before asking his wife. We concluded that alone we're both dangerous! Good thing we've got each other!