The Flaming Pizza Box Story

Okay. So even though it's totally gauche to post TWO BLOGS on the same day... having mentioned the flaming pizza box story in the last post, which you really aughta read first anyway, I just gotta tell you the flaming pizza box story. In sequence. With major disclaimers so no one gets into trouble. And the one about the Eagle Scout and the bear with the dirty underwear can wait for another time. Trust me.

Ahem.
THIS IS A TOTAL FABRICATION. I TELL YOU, IT NEVER HAPPENED IN REAL LIFE.
(And the cameras filming the sitcom of my life were not rolling somewhere in the background, either. Nu-uh. ) I TELL YOU, THERE IS NO PROOF! AND ALL THE CHARACTERS ARE FICTIONAL. THEY HAVE NO BASIS IN ANYONE YOU KNOW OR I KNOW IN REAL LIFE, OR THAT I'VE CASUALLY MENTIONED IN THIS BLOG BEFORE. NONE. NADA. ZIP. NO WAY, HOZAY! NIET. NIEN. NON. NONE.
Right. So. Anyway,

This guy I eventually married lived in a "dorm" while attending "college." AKA: West Point. The Army calls these dorms "Barracks," and they have all the same rules as a dorm, only you aren't allowed to have your lights on after 10pm, and you can't have girls in the boys' room without the door open, and you have to be fully clothed and sitting on different pieces of furniture even if the door IS open (and it had better not be after 10pm!). I kid you not. You can get dishognorably dgischarged for some of it... if you get caught...

So, naturally, no candles are allowed. But, here he was, with a candle on his desk. Lit. (Remember, this is a fictional story.) And he had his window open, because, just like the dorms you remember, this was nearly summer vacation, and there was no A/C. On the far side of the lit candle from the window was an open pizza box. Empty. Inhaled within 20 seconds of being delivered. By no less than 20 armed guards. You think I'm kidding. OH- and they did it in a linear and circumspect fashion, because it is BAD LUCK to break the wheel of a pizza by taking a slice out from somewhere other than the place the first slice was taken from! Seriously. Ask your local neighborhood USMA graduate. I've been banned from pizza parties before because I ALMOST broke the wheel. HORRORS!

Anyway... this random guy who almost-but-not-quite looked exactly like my ex-husband eight years ago... was smart. He made sure to keep the lit candle a good two feet away from the empty pizza box on his desk. But, he's not that smart because he leaves his room for a moment. He actually -gasp!- leaves a lit candle unattended! And this story is the moral to why this rule is so important that your parents and your college refuse to allow you to light candles in your bedroom. They don't even know about this story. And if you don't tell them either, we can keep it that way!

So, two minutes later, he returns to his room. And to flames shooting up from the pizza box-- a good two or three feet high. Cut to scene of tall, broad, and athletic young man RUNNING DOWN THE HALL WITH A FLAMING PIZZA BOX IN HIS HANDS, frantically dodging frozen-with-awe year-mates like a blitzing quarterback, in his quest to reach the mass shower room before the box a) burns his hands, or b) sets off the sprinkler system, or c) is noticed by anyone who can then ruin his future military career... While his roommate (who somehow hadn't noticed the flames until just that moment either) frantically waves a copy of his (my ex's) final term paper under the fire alarm-cum-automatic sprinkler system, to keep the remaining smoke in the room from setting it off and ruining everyone's life.

Yes.

So, How did this priceless moment happen???, you ask. Well, there was a box of kleenex sitting on the window sill. All these future engineers for the Army put their close-shaved heads together-- those who'd witnessed the flaming pizza box run, and therefore ...KNEW... --and the only thing they could come up with was that a breeze from the open window must have loosened an individual kleenex from the box, which then wafted over the lit candle, where it caught fire, and continued-- on fire-- to waft the additional two or three feet until it landed squarely on the open-but-empty grease-saturated pizza box, and resulted in some very tall, very blue, flames.
But, of course, this story isn't actually about real events, you see. So... children... don't try this at home. And, whatever you do, don't leave kleenex on your open windowsill if you plan to light an illicit candle in your bedroom. Trust me on this.

And, if you read the other blog from today (highly recommended) before reading this one... you now understand why I was so surprised that my kleenex wasn't great tinder for lighting my own personal illicit fire. No. It wasn't. That would have been too easy. And the filming crew must be amused. For, after all, the show must go on! (...at least until we're all filthy rich from it's popularity, and then we can just make some extra spending money off the reruns for a few years. ...Anybody wanna start paying me? Any time now. It worked for Arlo, and nobody believed anything HE told us about his personal history, either. But I'm telling you-- NOBODY COULD MAKE SHIGT LIKE THIS UP!)