ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (02-01-18)
An old phrase that you hear all the time is: "Where there's smoke, there's fire." It's used to describe a situation where someone is using a whole lot of subterfuge and obfuscation to hide the fact that they're doing something in secret which is obvious to the rest of us. For instance, Trump telling anyone who might listen that there was no collusion by him in Russia's spamming of his election, and Hillary Clinton was probably responsible for it, etc. When in reality most people can see that Trump has lit the presidency on fire.
But sometimes where there's smoke there's just smoke. That was certainly the case when I tried to start a fire a few weeks ago in our wood-burning stove downstairs. There's nothing more romantic than curling up beside a warm fire. The way I usually do it is to take some newspapers (this column is particularly incendiary) and crumple them up to use as tinder. Now they have an app for that, so I can skip this step. Then I take some sticks that have fallen onto the front yard from all the trees that I insist are still alive that my wife says are dead, and put them on top of the newspaper. When my back is turned, my dog takes the sticks out of the fireplace and brings them back outside. Then I take some firewood from the dead trees that it turns out my wife was right about, and put them on top of the sticks that I took back from the dog.
The most important part of the process is lighting some newspaper to hold to the top of the fireplace to warm up the flue so that the fire drafts up the chimney properly. If this all results in a raging inferno, that's when I usually remember to check if the flue is open. For the sake of safety, I've removed all flammable items from the area, and I only allow things that are inflammable anywhere near the fireplace. On this particular day, however, I sort of glossed over flue-warming part, and just let the zero-degree-with-the-wind-chill weather warm up the chimney all by itself.
The result was that smoke came billowing out of the stove and filled the entire room in 45 seconds. Acting quickly, I opened all the windows and turned on the attic fan, and within 45 more seconds the whole house was filled with dense fog plus zero-degree-with-the-wind-chill weather. All the smoke alarms sounded, so now I had ear-piercing beeping to enhance the party. Isn't this romantic so far? It's a good thing I didn't have a sprinkler system or I would have lost a wet tee-shirt contest as well. I finally had to get serious and find my fire extinguisher. It wasn't as big as I remembered, and had approximately the size and force of a can of deodorant, although not as effective against odor. It was supposed to fight class "A" fires, but it must have failed that class.
I don't know why I don't just ban smoke from my basement altogether. Let the basement switch to vaping instead. That way I won't know if what I'm inhaling is bad for me. Whenever somebody blows one of those huge blue vapor clouds next to me I always wonder what I'm breathing. It looks a 1974 Ford Pinto just pulled up next to me and burned through a quart of oil, but it smells like a lovely sachet pillow, whatever that is.
Smokey the Bear once said: "Only YOU can prevent forest fires!" Which is good advice, although I'm not sure what the advice is. I do know that if it were left to ME, there wouldn't be ANY forest fires, just a lot of forest smoke. You can thank your lucky stars that I wasn't around during the Stone Age trying to invent fire. Having already tried and failed at taking credit for inventing the stones, I turn my sights to conceiving fire. "Have you invented it yet, it's freezing in here?" My wife inquires, hopefully. "No, but check this out: SMOKE!" I exclaim proudly. "What are we supposed to do with that?" She asks. I answer, "Well the important thing is that there was NO collusion, and I would have invented fire if it wasn't for Hillary Clinton."
An old phrase that you hear all the time is: "Where there's smoke, there's fire." It's used to describe a situation where someone is using a whole lot of subterfuge and obfuscation to hide the fact that they're doing something in secret which is obvious to the rest of us. For instance, Trump telling anyone who might listen that there was no collusion by him in Russia's spamming of his election, and Hillary Clinton was probably responsible for it, etc. When in reality most people can see that Trump has lit the presidency on fire.
But sometimes where there's smoke there's just smoke. That was certainly the case when I tried to start a fire a few weeks ago in our wood-burning stove downstairs. There's nothing more romantic than curling up beside a warm fire. The way I usually do it is to take some newspapers (this column is particularly incendiary) and crumple them up to use as tinder. Now they have an app for that, so I can skip this step. Then I take some sticks that have fallen onto the front yard from all the trees that I insist are still alive that my wife says are dead, and put them on top of the newspaper. When my back is turned, my dog takes the sticks out of the fireplace and brings them back outside. Then I take some firewood from the dead trees that it turns out my wife was right about, and put them on top of the sticks that I took back from the dog.
The most important part of the process is lighting some newspaper to hold to the top of the fireplace to warm up the flue so that the fire drafts up the chimney properly. If this all results in a raging inferno, that's when I usually remember to check if the flue is open. For the sake of safety, I've removed all flammable items from the area, and I only allow things that are inflammable anywhere near the fireplace. On this particular day, however, I sort of glossed over flue-warming part, and just let the zero-degree-with-the-wind-chill weather warm up the chimney all by itself.
The result was that smoke came billowing out of the stove and filled the entire room in 45 seconds. Acting quickly, I opened all the windows and turned on the attic fan, and within 45 more seconds the whole house was filled with dense fog plus zero-degree-with-the-wind-chill weather. All the smoke alarms sounded, so now I had ear-piercing beeping to enhance the party. Isn't this romantic so far? It's a good thing I didn't have a sprinkler system or I would have lost a wet tee-shirt contest as well. I finally had to get serious and find my fire extinguisher. It wasn't as big as I remembered, and had approximately the size and force of a can of deodorant, although not as effective against odor. It was supposed to fight class "A" fires, but it must have failed that class.
I don't know why I don't just ban smoke from my basement altogether. Let the basement switch to vaping instead. That way I won't know if what I'm inhaling is bad for me. Whenever somebody blows one of those huge blue vapor clouds next to me I always wonder what I'm breathing. It looks a 1974 Ford Pinto just pulled up next to me and burned through a quart of oil, but it smells like a lovely sachet pillow, whatever that is.
Smokey the Bear once said: "Only YOU can prevent forest fires!" Which is good advice, although I'm not sure what the advice is. I do know that if it were left to ME, there wouldn't be ANY forest fires, just a lot of forest smoke. You can thank your lucky stars that I wasn't around during the Stone Age trying to invent fire. Having already tried and failed at taking credit for inventing the stones, I turn my sights to conceiving fire. "Have you invented it yet, it's freezing in here?" My wife inquires, hopefully. "No, but check this out: SMOKE!" I exclaim proudly. "What are we supposed to do with that?" She asks. I answer, "Well the important thing is that there was NO collusion, and I would have invented fire if it wasn't for Hillary Clinton."
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