Explosions in the Sky

Yesterday, I very nearly blew myself up.

I'm a bit of a gun nut, so after a full day of shooting my friend Richard and I were cleaning our collection in my breakfast room.

Night had fallen, and an impressive thunderstorm raged outside, occasionally knocking out the power.

Not wanting to leave a bunch of half-cleaned guns strewn about my house, I lit some candles in case the power went out for good.

Cleaning firearms requires lots of solvent and rags/paper towels, which we coated the table with.

Let me pause for some important safety tips for the kids.

#1 - Do not have open flames near firearms, especially Christmas-scented candles.
#2 - Do not have ammunition in the cleaning area, regardless of how tired you are or disassembled the guns are.

As I'm cleaning and talking with Rich, I begin to feel the prickly sensation of heat on my left arm as Rich gives illuminating information on what's happening by shouting "dude, Dude, DUDE!". I turn to my left and discover that a large portion of my gun and ammo-laden table is aflame.
I am a clever person sometimes. This was not one of those times.
Rushing into manly action, I grab the flaming paper-towels WITH MY BARE HANDS and make a dash for the kitchen.
Now my hands are on fire, in addition to the table and my shooting supplies.
Not only that, but picking up the towels reveals the boxes of ammunition underneath are also on fire.
The fuel-soaked towels disintegrate on the way to the sink, leaving glowing embers strewn to mark my path from the breakfast room to the sink.
My brain catches up with me and tells me to drop them on the nonflammable tile floor, and go see what Rich is up to.
Rich has in fact stopped yelling "dude!" and has put out the flaming boxes of ammo, in addition to anything else that looks burny.
With ash now strewn about the room and our heartrates returning to the triple digits, we sit and briefly contemplate what just happened.
I put the candles out, then we laugh for about ten minutes.

Rich: "What idiot picks up flaming-death towels with his HANDS, then tries to run around with them!?!"

Me: "Maybe give me more information and less panic next time. Repeating 'Dude' is a great way to tell me the table's on fire and we are both about to be shot, then burned."


We finish cleaning the guns, and the power never does go out.

Ah well, it was worth it.