Blazing Eyebrows

copyright 2005 Dale Hansen - no reproduction without permission

Just next to the door into the garage, my father had placed an old chest of drawers. This was for his collection of whatever-he-couldn’t-think-of-to-put-somewhere-else. One day, in the top drawer, I found the greatest thing a pre-pubescent boy could.

Lighter fluid.

It was a yellow tin (this was during the medieval ages before everything was made of plastic), and had a little red replaceable tip cover. (No one in my house smoked, so I still have no idea why it was there in the first place, but as a collector of random treasures, I know from first hand experience that junk drawers automatically seek their own level. Once you start a junk drawer, it fills on it’s own.)

I snatched this tin and found an old tuna can somewhere and retreated to my room after a quick stop to get some matches from the kitchen.

Now, a quick word about my room: Messy. I had always been proud to be slovenly, and had litter everywhere. If you never clean up it’s easier to hide certain – errors in judgment. As the bed took up most of the room, it was the primary collection center. This particular day, I had left a mirror lying on my bed. It might seem strange, but it was actually one of the less – esoteric - things I’d had there. I had a little wooden box about the size of a footstool as a side table between the bed and the wall. On the other side of the bed I had a dresser, which was where I placed the tuna can.

I shot a few drops of fluid into the can and set it ablaze. It burned merrily for a few moments and then went out. It did it again, only with a little more. Same thing, only a little longer.

OK, if one shot burns for a moment and two burn for two moments, then a whole lot should burn for a whole lot of moments. Simple deductive reasoning.
I filled the tuna can about a third full and fired it off.

It burned happily, like a little campfire in my room. I watched it contentedly flicker away and only then noticed that I had made an slight error.

I had left the paper label on the tuna can.

The mermaid on the label was burning, as was the seascape behind her. I tried to blow on the label, to snuff out the flames, but I soon realized I was blowing burning fluid onto the top of the dresser was now beginning to crackle.

It was time to get rid of the evidence and pretend it never happened. The best way to extinguish flame was to blow it out, but my breath - coming from the side of the can - only sprayed the burning fluid onto the top of the dresser - which was also quite happily burning away .

Thus, the only logical recourse was to blow straight down. NOTE: This is why I was never good at logic. When you blow across a container, your breath travels to the other side. When you blow straight down, it has nowhere else to go but right back up in your face. Especially if your face happens be within an inch of a blazing tuna can.

I drew a breath like the big, bad wolf about to blow down the house of bricks, leaned over the can and blew. The resulting inferno attacked my eyebrows and propelled me back onto the bed.

Remember the mirror?

I landed perfectly centered on the mirror and shattered it. The bounce from the box spring and mattress catapulted me back into the air and I landed with my stomach on the wooden box, temporarily pinned between it, the bed and the wall, also temporarily unable to breathe.

Meanwhile, the home fires kept burning.

By the time I was able to extricate myself from the broken-glass-bed-box-wall prison and return to the fire, the lighter fluid had all burned off. The paint on the dresser though was still cheerfully in flames.

Even though I had the breath taken out of me in my fall, panic enabled me to find enough to finish blowing out the fires.

The top of the dresser was now charcoal except for a small ring that hadn’t been touched – that was where the tuna can sat.

I returned the purloined lighter fluid and threw out the can and the remains of the mirror. As for the dresser, I found that a nicely draped towel under the stereo and other items I piled on it looked rather fetching.

And, in a few days, my eyebrows grew back.