Boys tend to go through a phase during which they are fascinated by fire. This phase begins around the age of two, and ends with cremation, whether that cremation was intentional or not. When boys are young, we mainly keep them flame-proof with constant supervision and the kind of over-melodramatic warning parents can get away with when their kids are (let’s be honest here) fucking idiots. By the time boys close in on their twentieth birthday, they’ve got something vaguely resembling a clue (just barely) and spend most of their time chasing girls anyway. But in between, there is a span of three to five years where they are very likely to engage in what appears to be, by almost any standard, brain damaged behavior. “Hey! Let’s soak these grass clipping in gasoline, stuff them in this propane tank nozzle and light the whole thing on fire!” The following story fits into that category. Continue reading