Almighty Dad | A stay at home dad blog

Today we have another great post by Stefan Lanfer.  He is a Boston-based dad of two, playwright, and foundation strategy guy.  He blogs about “the big mysteries revealed in the small moments” of fatherhood at Dad Today, and about finding time and ways to hang in there with the work you are most passionate about, even when there is no time, and there seems to be no way at The Write Map.  Stefan is the author of The Faith of a Child and Other Stories of Becoming and Being Dad – a must read for any dad-to-be freaking out about the unknowns to come. Visit Dad Today for more info.  This is Stefan’s second guest post for The Almighty Dad.

The house did not burn down, though it very nearly could have, my instincts at STEP 1 and STEP 2 were so appallingly bad, the unintended consequences of which were so serious, and so stupidly obvious (but only after the fact), to the extent that the whole episode strikes me now in hindsight as about as perfect a case study of the very concept of “unintended consequences” that one could hope for, if one hoped for such things, (which I didn’t).

My only saving graces in it all was that I had recently found our fire extinguisher and reread the instructions before I (after watching a Do It Yourself video on my iPhone) went down to the basement to replace the dishwasher fuse, in what turned out to be vain hopes that $10 solution for our drying machine (that cost us $135 bucks for the Sears guy to diagnose and deal with) would also do the trick for this machine.  It didn’t.  So the Sears guy came back and for $85 delivered a $400 estimate on needed repairs that might keep it in working order long term – which leaves us a very stylish looking Frigidaire drying rack.

The blaze all began when I went, mid-dinner, from the dining room to the kitchen to retrieve the second round of tacos from our Black & Decker toaster over with the temperamental timer that sometimes decided to turn off.

What clued me in to the fact that this accident waiting to happen was actually happening was the billowing black smoke rapidly filling up our kitchen.

“Oh sh%t!” I said, no time to sensor myself.

And James said, “What, daddy, what?” as I ran to the toaster and…

STEP 1

…I did not think, TURN IT OFF! or UNPLUG IT!, but instead GET THOSE SMOKING THINGS OUT BEFORE THEY BURST INTO FLAMES! which of course is exactly what they did when I opened the toaster oven door and gave them all the oxygen that they needed.

The flames leapt out and were soon licking the shelves of the hutch above them, and I thought OH NO! and grabbed the navy blue fleece blanket that happened to have been slung over the back of a nearby kitchen chair.  And watching those flames climb higher and higher, I…

STEP 2

…did not close the toaster oven door to cut off the oxygen, or throw the blanket over the flame to do the same (though would fleece have even done it?), but instead I started waving the blankets at and through the flames, thinking KEEP THEM OFF THE HUTCH (and maybe, pathetically BLOW IT OUT!)

It was only after the fact that I thought of, and now understood more deeply than I ever had before, the expression “fan the flames,” which of course is exactly what I was doing, but…

STEP 3

…thank God for step 3.  There I was, stupidly frozen by the awful spectacle as it unfolded, and as it quickly worsened (with my help) before my eyes.  I called, “Ashley! Fire extinguisher!  Get it.”

“Where?” she said.

“Under the sink,” I said, still fanning away like mad, and I kept fanning until she shoved the thing in my hand.

“You’ll have to,” she said, “I don’t know…”

And before she could finish her sentence I took it and pulled the pin and squeezed the handle, and in a blast of white, powdery smoke, the ordeal was over.  Phew.

I spent the next hour and a half cleaning the mess, until all that remained was a charred spot on the bottom of one shelf of the hutch you’d have to be looking for to see, and a lingering smell of burning wood, which I know can be quite pleasant, except in a house without a fireplace, and me feeling just stupid lucky that the episode ended lucky, instead of stupid, and a feeling of deep gratitude for whatever angels were watching over, protecting us all from me and from tragedy.

If there is a moral at the end of this story, I am not so sure what it is.

Don’t act fast just to act – stop and think?

Reread how to use that fire extinguisher – and remind yourself where it is?

Throw away the accident waiting to happen before it happens?

Or, simply, as it says at the close of Maya’s favorite book of the moment, each night that you are…

“Thank the Lord you are well.  Now go to sleep, says Miss Clavel.”

(And I did, and do.  And we did.)

Photo Credits by Creative Commons Attribution License

“Lewis Bonfire Night 2007 – Wall of Flame” by Dominic Alves

“Black column of smoke” by Michael Cote

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