The Burning Bush

Last weekend, my roommate Ben invited me to go up to Oregon for the 4th of July. We had quite a exciting disaster involving Ben's cousin, Steve (Aka. Dark Moses). Let me tell you what happened...

Dark Moses or otherwise Steve, likes to play with fire. He has burned down several things in his lifetime: two fields a barn, and several young children.

We were about to go shooting on Sunday afternoon when we were delayed getting into the car for some unknown reason. Steve, in this downtime, decided to meander towards the bushes in the center of the driveway with a butane lighter in hand. His eyes were drawn towards a pile cotton from the nearby cottonwood trees that had gathered itself into a small pile of kindeling there in the wind. He decides, because he was bored, to light the pile of cotton on fire and WATCH it burn for his pure entertainment.

All of the sudden, I noticed that Steve is now up looking for a hose. I had no idea why he was in such a rush... until I saw the pile of burning cotton which at this time had now turned into a burning pile of BUSHES!

So, I kind of freaked out a bit. Not like a complete freak out but I was definitely in panic mode. Steve had tried to stomp the fire out but it was too late. It had spread underneath the bushes where all the dead pine needles were and was just slowly creeping throughout the rest of the bushes on the other side of the island. I immediately looked at what kind of potential this fire could turn into if we couldn't put it out. The bush was on a island that was surrounded by the driveway so if worse came to worse, it would just burn down all the bushes and trees that were there on the island. But thinking about the wind, flying ash and the fact that Steve was standing 15 feet away from the source of the blaze with a hose that was obviously too short, calling the Fire Dept was not a bad idea. Ben, with his newly acquired hose, stopped me from doing so and I immediatley went to fetch another hose to extend Steve's feeble one.

At this time, Ben's dad, Art, was trying to get the sprinklers turned on as to help put out the now burning pillar of bush smoke that was at least 50 feet high and Ben's brother Cody was looking for someway to help. I asked Cody where another hose might be so I followed Cody to back of the house, retrieved the extra hose, ran to the front, attached it to Steve's kinked end and he was on his way into the bushes to defeat the burning shrubs. Meanwhile, Ben who had got his own hose from adifferent spiget, was spraying the bushes like he was watering them while conversing with the neighbor about this flaming pillar of smoke in their front yard. So I had to quench my panicing self and snatched the hose from Ben and dove right into the smolding island in a desperate attempt to prevent the spreading fire that steathily move along the floor of the dirt bed.

After about a couple minutes, we finally stopped the fire from engulfing the other half of the island and just had to put out the piles of fire and ash that was already too late to save and still burnign behind us. Let me tell you though... it was actually kind of exciting! I was covered, well not entirely covered, with charred marks all over my pants, legs and my shoes were just dirty as sin after I got out of those bushes. It felt so awesome to just grab that hose and dive right into the very heart of the fire and conquer it's sorry butt. I felt pretty proud about how I handled things. But Ben's dad, oh nelly, he was NOT happy. We stood there at those bushes with hoses in hand, spraying... no SOAKING those bushes down for at least 5 minutes after we had already put out everything.

I wasn't sure what to do after it was out. I was kind of afraid, not for me but for STEVE. He had just lit an entire 20 x 20 area of bushes on fire because he was frickin' bored. I couldn't help but laugh a bit and marvel at what a completely MORONIC thing it was!! No offense Steve! :) One thing is for sure. We didn't go shooting after that. In fact, we didn't do much of ANYTHING after that. Art pulled out his lawnmower to work on almost directly after we had everything put out. I avoided him for a while and was just praying for Steve and his wimpy little soul. He was toast. Burnt toast!!!

All in all, everything turned out fine in the end. Art never ripped Steve's heart out and fed it to his first born child while dancing to the gods of sweet revenge while Steve's naked body lay on the sacrificial alter of "I'm a complete Idiot!". Nor did Steve end up at the bottom of the Snake river with a lawnmower strapped to his chest and his mutilated arms and legs bolted to the grass blades with "Pyro" or "Moron" or "Dark Moses Sucks!" tatooed on them. No! None of that happend... But we sure blew the hell of Santa and Mrs. Clause the very next day! Steve even took her head off.