Desk on Fire

During the Halloween party the kids started screaming. They’re pretty much always screaming, so at first I didn’t think anything of it. Especially because it was Halloween and they loved scaring the crap out of each other with their masks in the dark. But they all started running out into the lobby and screaming the same set of words (that I didn’t understand), and Candy ran out of her office and down the hall toward the classrooms.

I was curious and got up to look, and there was Candy walking quickly down the hall carrying a flaming desk. If you had been there you would understand why this was especially funny. Candy is like 4’10” and the desk is almost too bulky for her to carry, even in kid’s size. But she managed, and everyone looked terrified and tried to figure out a solution. One teacher ran to the bathroom but couldn’t find anything to carry water back out to the desk. I grabbed my water bottle (that is always with me) and doused the flames. Everyone looked astonished that I thought so quickly, and I was equally astounded that they didn’t.

It’s been ingrained in me since birth (practically) that if there is a fire, water is the solution. And of course we learned all about “Stop! Drop! And Roll!” in elementary school. Apparently these lessons were not translated into Korean in the Eighties when they were drilled into me. And maybe I would have been less prepared if I had been the slightest bit surprised that something caught on fire. But as I said, it was a train wreck waiting to happen. I knew it would happen, and it did.