I think I may lack a level of common sense that is shared with even the simplest of human beings. The other night I was forcing myself to paint an oil painting. Forcing not because I hate oils, but because I'm lazy and oils require an overwhelming amount of preparation and clean up time. You need linseed oil, turpentine, pallet knife, pallet, and big lungs. The mixture of linseed oil and oil paint smells like ejaculate to me and it also fucks me up. Painting with oils in a draft-less room has the same effect on me as a hit of acid chased with moonshine. Acrylics require only water. Good old fashioned odorless water.
It may have been the fumes from the turpentine or perhaps the bottle of wine I had consumed prior to painting, but I suddenly got the urge to test the flammability of a rag doused in turpentine. I held a lighter to the rag, slowly getting it just close enough to ignite the wavy fumes exuding from the soaking wet fibers. Instantly a fire ball engulfed my hand and I began to panic as the hair on my arms were singed off in billowing black curly flakes. I did a few circles in the dining room looking for a place to throw the fireball burning my hand. I ended up throwing it not in a pot of soil, not in an empty fishbowl, not even the toilet (which I was only a few feet away from). Instead I threw it on the the already garish hardwood floors, which only made the flame, which was now the size of half my body and emitting clouds of black smoke, more angry. I ran into the bathroom and cupped my hands under the sink, looking anxiously at the growing flicker of light dancing on the walls outside the bathroom door, and then back at myself in the mirror. I caught a moment of eye contact with myself and my reflection scolded me for my blatant retardation. I wanted to scream, but all I could mutter was, "ehhh", like a child would wine to it's mother when it crapped it's pants, and throwing my shoulders up in question marks.
By the time I made it to the fire my hands were empty and damp, so I slapped the rag and the spreading flame on the floor furiously until finally all that was left were glittering red coils. I collapsed next to the blackened patch of hardwood floor and lit a cigarette off a piece of rag that had not yet gone out. What, I thought to myself, is my fucking problem? The bottle of turpentine says flammable, I have been warned of it's flammability, and yet; I held a lighter to it to see what would happen and almost burnt my house down. What was I going to tell Jen when she came home?
Fortunately Jen did not notice the dinner plate sized charcoal patch in our dining room, but I decided to come clean anyway. But in an effort to sound less stupid I told her I was trying to light a cigarette with a rag in my hand and the rag exploded in my face, which in retrospect sounds just as stupid, if not more so than, "I wanted to see how flammable it was so I lit it on fire." Jen said almost nothing as I told her my story, she just rolled over on the couch and laughed at my idiocy.
I wish I could say that this was my first encounter with fire related acts of stupidity, but I actually set a palm tree on fire in my dad's living room when I was twelve. There is still a trail of melted carpet leading to the bathroom where it was put out. Last halloween I threw a lighter into a bon fire at a work party. It blew up and sent my co-worker, Dinease, hurling three feet backwards, which added to my great reputation at work. My mom got me a baby sitter at the age of thirteen because I had taken to placing napkins on the stove burners to see how long it would take for them to catch on fire when turned on high. She also shoved the burners in her purse every day before leaving for work.
I ended up going to high school with my babysitter, at the same time. Had I been heterosexual and had she not had a bible blocking her vagina from all attempting objects, it would have been the ideal recipe for baby sitter sex, which I think is every boys fantasy. Turns out, it wasn't a recipe for pre-pubescent fulfillment so much as it was a recipe for being a looser. After class with my babysitter she would drive me home and watch my brother and I where she put us in in time out every time we broke a window, set something on fire, or used the lords name in vain. I used to get so mad at my mother for making me have a babysitter up until age 14 but looking back I'm wondering if it wasn't such a bad idea.
My brother, Nick, and I used to buy bulk bottles of rubbing alcohol and set them on fire. We would write words on the street with rubbing alcohol, set them on fire and dance, jump and cartwheel through burning streets. This hobby of ours continued for years and is still revisited on holidays and birthdays. It got out of control when we decided to set a park on fire. Not the whole park, just the slides. We started with the metal slides and worked our way to the plastic spiraled tube slide. We dumped a whole bottle of rubbing alcohol down the spiral slide and watched as the shape changed. We ran away screaming when we realized the flame had become to large to blow out and when we returned in the morning there were holes in the slide with stalactite cones frozen from cooling. It was still a functional slide, it was just significantly less appealing after it had been set on fire.
I wonder what it's like to have that voice in your head that tells you not to do something profoundly stupid and listen to it. I know I have that voice when it comes to drinking and driving, relationship intuition, and other things related to common sense. I just typically do not listen to them. I just sit back after the fact and realize what a dip shit I am. Looking at the burn marks on the floor Jen suggested renters insurance. I'm wondering if it's not such a bad idea.
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