Reminiscence of a Departed Friend

Heehee, sorry 'bout the title sounding like my friend is dead, I just think that title sounds way better than "Remembering My Friend Who Is Now in Texas for College", don't you?

Anyway, as the Deerfield Fair arrives (my school is going there tommorrow instead of our usual school day classes!), my mind takes a very short trip down Memory Lane (it'll have farther to travel when I'm old 'n' crusty :D ). Every year, Matt (the guy who's in Texas now), Jonny (a friend who is currently in California but is actually coming back tommorrow for his brother's wedding, he'll be staying for a week and a half so some other guys and I am gonna go to the Topsfield Fair with him), some assorted other friends and I would all go as a group after school to the Deerfield Fair. Honestly, I liked being with my friends much more than the actual fair itself; it was a great place to hang out but it was the friends that made it fun. So now, as I think about going to the fair without Matt this year, my rememberances of the great and crazy times we had pop up faster than zits on a teenager's face. ;D

One of my more recent and most noteworthy crazy, dangerous, and rather dumb thing that I did with Matt actually stemmed from diligence in doing a project for English class. Our class had just read Dante's Inferno, a really boring and dull book about what this Italian guy thought Hell was like. Anyway, after a week or two of painstakingly emptying the book of its boring contents, our English teacher assigned us a project. We had to choose a chapter of the book and somehow physically represent it. Each chapter was about a certain "circle of Hell", basically Dante's idea of the way it was divided. We could either make a model of it, make a movie, or whatever else we could think of. Matt and I teamed up to make a movie. As a movie with only two actors could get very messy and would not in all probability make very much sense, we wisely chose to use Lego guys for our actors. It was a good thing too, the chapter we chose had two groups of sinners, one that was constantly driven around a giant circular trench by demons and another that was sunk in poop (yes I'm serious). We dug a trench in a clearing in the woods around his house to film the action in, and selectively chose Lego guys suited to the various roles in the story. Anyway, to get to the crazyness/danger. Even though the book hadn't mentioned fire in this "circle of Hell", Matt and I were not so enthusiastic about a nonconflagrant Hell. So, to add a bit of realism/coolness, we decided to make little fires around the trench. My friend, whose family is big into all motorized anythings and had lots of gasoline lying around, suggested that we light some of the aforementioned fossil fuel for our fires. I readily agreed, and after pouring little puddles of gas into holes that we had set up in strategic locations along and inside the trench, we lit the gas on fire. The result was perfect, blazing fire with a thick, black smoke. It really added some "spice" to the movie, I gotta admit. There was only one problem: Gasoline burns up very fast. So, in the middle of shooting the film, our blazing Hell-fire started to die down. Not exactly helpful. We solved this problem with a very simple soution; we poured more gas on to our guttering flames. The only problem is, when you pour gas on a live fire, the fire just flares up, consumes the gasoline faster than I can consume a sandwich when I'm really hungry (believe me when I say that's fast), and then dies down again. Pretty annoying when you're trying to film a movie. Anyway, after repeated short dumps of gasoline on the dying puddles of flaming fuel, Matt began to get a little bugged by the uncooperative fire. Giving a grunt of annoyance, he let the gas pour out a little bit longer than he had before, with the intention of giving the fire a little more to burn. Well, needless to say, you don't wanna pour a continual stream of gas on a live fire. As he poured, I watched as the stream of gas lit up from the bottom and continued to burn up to the spout of the gasoline container (this was all in the course of 2 seconds of pouring btw). Matt noticed it too, and quickly pulled the container away, only to find that gas around the tip of the spout had caught fire. He quickly put it out with his hand. Phew, we were safe. Unfortunately we weren't smart enough to stay that way.

It happened again. The gas burned low, and instead of a blazing inferno we had smoldering wisps of flame. Did we learn from our 5-minutes-ago past experiences and let them burn out before pouring more gasoline on? Yes we did, and we were safe and lived happily ever after and never played with fire again. NOT!!!! We viewed the failing blaze with disgust and annoyance, a delay in a project we just wanted to get done. And, again, I shall ask, did we wait until it was safe to pour more gas and light it? Nope! Matt took the gas container, said "Y'know what? I'm sick of this!", and poured the gas onto the dying flames. This time, whether purposely or not I'm not entirely sure, he dumped it with more gusto than the previous times, allowing a greater torrent of fuel to dump out than he had before, and he held it there for about 2 seconds.

And guess what happened?

I watched as the gas lit (again), the stream of clear liquid turned into a pillar of fire, and this time the nozzle was set fully ablaze. Matt quickly jerked the container away, and in the proccess flung flaming gas all over the dry leaves and grass around him. The leaves and grass caught fire. The gasoline container was on fire, looking ready to blow up any second, ready to engulf us and the clearing around us in a giant ball of flame. Matt was in a state of panic such as I've never seen him before or since. "Oh man, this is not good! This is NOT good!" he exclaimed, running around frantcially, debating whether to flee the area before the gas tank exploded in our faces or to attempt to put out the flames before said catastrophe.

And what was I doing in the midst of the impending doom?

I, while Matt was running around attempting to solve our predicament......was on the ground laughing my head off.

LOL, just thinking about it is making me laugh, just picturing the moment when the gas tank caught fire and flaming gas splattered over dry leaves is making me want to burst out into loud peals of laughter.

No, it wasn't hysteria. It was really, truly, hilarious to see. Yes, I realize I should have taken the danger more seriously, but no matter how hard I try, I dont think i could possibly have not laughed. IT WAS SO FUNNY! It was exactly like one of those movies where the two main characters alway end up messing everything up and everything goes wrong around them. LOL I wish I had that moment on film!

For some reason, Matt didn't seem to understand the humor of the thing.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? HELP ME OUT HERE!!!" he yelled, amidst running to and from a pond nearby with a small pail that had holes in the bottom, dumping whatever remained of the contents on the fire that threatened to spread throughout the woods and blow us up at the same time. I, still laughing, attempted to help but ended up spilling more than I dumped on the fire with all my laughing. Somehow, we put out the fire on the nozzle, I still don't fully remember how, putting out the fire is something of a blur of urgency and the hilariousness of the situation. The leaves and grass were likewise doused before any significant damage had taken place. Upon finally relaxing, we payed closer attention to the nozzle of the gasoline container. We stared at the nozzle and looked at each other in amazement at our close call.

The plastic around the bottom of the nozzle where it connected with the container had melted. The fire had melted the plastic just before the gasoline inside.

Fortunately, the container had only been half full.

It might not have ended up so funny had it been completely full.

Anyway, to wrap up my little tale here, we finished the movie, being very careful of how we used the gas after that.

The teacher thought our project was the best out of the whole class and gave us both a 100.

And I learned of the good times you can have playing with fire. ;)