Up in flames

What’s the most on fire you’ve ever been? Figuratively, literally, whatever.

When I read today’s postaday topic, I started laughing and remembered a particular incident from my past that I thought would be somewhat fitting to share.

It was summer of 2001.  I was working in a 5 bed residential facility for adults with developmental disabilities.  My job was to supervised them and teach them daily living skills, help them work on individual goals, and learn how to be productive members of a community.  Another role was to help them learn how to cook and/or do the cooking if they could not.  This particular sunny, summer day, we were going to bar-b-que some chicken and vegetables.  I went out to the bbq to prepare it.  I lined it with aluminum foil, shut the lid, and then proceeded to turn it on.  I turned all the gas knobs on and pushed the ignite button, but for some reason, it was turning on.  DISCLAIMER-  Let me just say that I have had minimal to no experience with lighting a grill.

So I then opened the lid of the grill with my face very close to it, looking to see if something was wrong, and then I pushed the ignite button again.  Are you picturing what happened next???  Yes, it lit, very well, and it lit up my face and hair.  I had been trapping the gas, because of the foil and having the grill covered, so the minute I opened the lid, it lit.  I had ended up with singed eyelashes, eyebrows, and because I had used a lot of hairspray in my hair that morning to keep my hair tamed back in my ponytail, I now had singed hair, and after visiting the hair salon a couple days later, I was sporting new bangs (I hate bangs).   I had small blisters on my lip, upper lip and nose, but they were not serious.  I was taken to the Emergency Room by my boss (yes, that was an embarrassing phone call).  While we were waiting, she was filling out the incident report papers for work, and she drew the funniest picture of the grill, in flames, along with my face/head in flames.  I can laugh at it now, and I think I probably laughed at the picture at the time.

Needless to say, I’m still a little gun-shy when lighting up the bar-b-que grill nowadays, but I learned my lesson and have had no further incidents.  And I no longer have bangs, and hopefully never will.