Puppets Afire
I have a houseguest right now, a friend of mine, who shall remain unnamed, due to the nature of this entry. I wouldn't want to embarrass her.
Last Saturday night, we were getting ready to go over to the grand re-opening of the deYoung Museum. She had thought it would be nice to go to dinner first, so we invited some friends to assemble at my house for some wine and cheese before we all went out for some Eritrean food.
As I shuffled around my room, getting dressed and drinking tea, my friend tried to make the place look inviting by turning on some lamps in the livingroom before going into the bathroom to get ready.
When I walked to the back of the house to ask her a question, I noticed black smoke pouring out of the livingroom door near the ceiling. Then, I smelled the horrible stench of burning plastic. My eyes widened in disbelief. "What's on fire?" I asked, alarmed. "What"? my friend replied, turning around to look behind her, as I stared over her shoulder with increasing horror as blackness filled the livingroom.
Suddenly, we both sprung into frantic motion. It was like a bad action movie. We ran to the livingroom and saw that the halogen lamp in the corner had caught fire. Earlier in the day, I had hung a fuzzy marionette bird puppet on the lamp by hooking its plastic handle over the saucer part at the top of the lamp. At the time, it struck me as slightly dangerous, but I figured if we planned to use the lamp, we would certainly remove the puppet beforehand.
D'oh!
The melted puppet lay at the base of the lamp, oozing black plastic into the new carpet that I had just coerced my landlord into installing, as flames shot from the top of the lamp, blackening the ceiling and spilling black, molten plastic all over the surrounding walls and furniture. (Do you have any idea how hard it is to remove molten plastic from surfaces? I need an informative infomercial, in a bad way.)
All the while, my friend and I ran around like barnyard chickens. She was blowing on the top of the lamp, which in turn, spewed copious amounts of ash into the air. Having been in the midst of changing clothes, I was unfortunately, still running around in my bra. I hurried to the window and wrenched it open. Much to my instant dismay, I quickly realized that the window was just below the rain of dripping liquid plastic and fiery ashes. As my friend continued to blow on the fire, I ran to the kitchen to get a wet towel to throw over the flame. All the while, we yelled back and forth about what to do, and neither of us agreed with the other. This wasn't a time to sit and compromise, so we each went about our distraught business separately.
She, eventually, yelled that the fire was out and began prying what was left of my puppet friend off of the carpet. I yelled that there was a fan and gave vague directions about where she might locate it, as I scurried around the house opening doors and windows.
Miraculously, she found the fan, plugged it in, and the smoke, along with the lung-clogging stink of burnt plastic, began to drift out of the house. We looked at ourselves, her in her new outfit she had bought that day and me in my underwear, both of us covered in ash and smoke. Awesome. Fifteen minutes until guests arrive. "I'll get the wine," I said.
Last Saturday night, we were getting ready to go over to the grand re-opening of the deYoung Museum. She had thought it would be nice to go to dinner first, so we invited some friends to assemble at my house for some wine and cheese before we all went out for some Eritrean food.
As I shuffled around my room, getting dressed and drinking tea, my friend tried to make the place look inviting by turning on some lamps in the livingroom before going into the bathroom to get ready.
When I walked to the back of the house to ask her a question, I noticed black smoke pouring out of the livingroom door near the ceiling. Then, I smelled the horrible stench of burning plastic. My eyes widened in disbelief. "What's on fire?" I asked, alarmed. "What"? my friend replied, turning around to look behind her, as I stared over her shoulder with increasing horror as blackness filled the livingroom.
Suddenly, we both sprung into frantic motion. It was like a bad action movie. We ran to the livingroom and saw that the halogen lamp in the corner had caught fire. Earlier in the day, I had hung a fuzzy marionette bird puppet on the lamp by hooking its plastic handle over the saucer part at the top of the lamp. At the time, it struck me as slightly dangerous, but I figured if we planned to use the lamp, we would certainly remove the puppet beforehand.
D'oh!
The melted puppet lay at the base of the lamp, oozing black plastic into the new carpet that I had just coerced my landlord into installing, as flames shot from the top of the lamp, blackening the ceiling and spilling black, molten plastic all over the surrounding walls and furniture. (Do you have any idea how hard it is to remove molten plastic from surfaces? I need an informative infomercial, in a bad way.)
All the while, my friend and I ran around like barnyard chickens. She was blowing on the top of the lamp, which in turn, spewed copious amounts of ash into the air. Having been in the midst of changing clothes, I was unfortunately, still running around in my bra. I hurried to the window and wrenched it open. Much to my instant dismay, I quickly realized that the window was just below the rain of dripping liquid plastic and fiery ashes. As my friend continued to blow on the fire, I ran to the kitchen to get a wet towel to throw over the flame. All the while, we yelled back and forth about what to do, and neither of us agreed with the other. This wasn't a time to sit and compromise, so we each went about our distraught business separately.
She, eventually, yelled that the fire was out and began prying what was left of my puppet friend off of the carpet. I yelled that there was a fan and gave vague directions about where she might locate it, as I scurried around the house opening doors and windows.
Miraculously, she found the fan, plugged it in, and the smoke, along with the lung-clogging stink of burnt plastic, began to drift out of the house. We looked at ourselves, her in her new outfit she had bought that day and me in my underwear, both of us covered in ash and smoke. Awesome. Fifteen minutes until guests arrive. "I'll get the wine," I said.
posted by Bert at 12:24 PM
1 Comments:
Great story :)
Try ironing over thenplastic with a newspaper between the carpet and the iron.
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