Humor

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Playing With Fire
By Brad Rodgers

I have absolutely no doubt that one of the greatest decisions I’ve ever made in life was the decision to marry the love of my life, Christina. After meeting in college, dating for over four years, and realizing that we have absolutely nothing in common, we got married in my home church, which was also the place she accepted Christ as her savior. Now, after two years, I can look back and honestly say…we have come together to form the unluckiest couple in the history of modern man. Though hundreds (well, maybe six or seven) examples come to mind, the one that sticks out the most is the day we lost everything we owned.

Less than a year after we married, at around four o’clock in the morning, we awoke to the wonderful sight of our dog performing acrobatic tricks on our bed. Jumps, leaps, flips – we were overcome with pride at his agility. That was until we became aware of the crackling noise that seemed to be coming from the living room. Rushing around the corner, I was met with the heat and smoke coming from the furniture flambé.

Now, throughout our newly married lives, we had made strides in such areas as budgeting, understanding one another, and proper methods of avoiding the in-laws without hurting feelings, but unplanned campfires in the living room had yet to become a topic of real discussion with us. Thus, we initially handled it in the best way that we knew how. Christina flailed her arms violently and screamed at the fire, possibly hoping to scare it away. I’ve yet to really get to the bottom of that mystery. I, on the other hand, spent my few remaining moments in the apartment for constructive purposes – looking for the fire extinguisher. While some could nitpick and question the places I looked for the extinguisher (the refrigerator, under the bed), I can only claim panic as an excuse and the fact that I’m a man. We normally find everything we’ve lost under the bed because we kicked everything under there when our wives asked us to clean the room. Upon realizing that I was not going to be fruitful in my search of the extinguisher and noticing that my dog was poised to jump from the second floor window, I realized it was time to say a final goodbye to my large screen television that was soon to explode, and exit the premises.

Our next thought, upon retreating, was to acknowledge that now might be a proper time to formally introduce ourselves to the neighbors and inform them that, unless they were wearing fire-protectant pajamas, they might want to leave their homes. Everyone in the building evacuated safely and there were no casualties other than the fact that, in all of the excitement of looking for the fire extinguisher, I forgot to look for some clothes to put on. While many in the parking lot considered this a tragedy on par with the actual fire, I must inform you that my wife was rather amused.

Now before you begin to feel sorry for us, I must admit that my wife gave me two distinct choices right before we got married: buying renter’s insurance or purchasing concrete furniture for the apartment. Protecting my comfort in the event of the weekly Tennessee Titans game, I chose the insurance policy and cushioned seats. She was serious about our family’s security and I was serious about being able to watch football without bruising my rear end.

Not long after everyone in the apartment building had congregated outside and accounted for their friends and loved ones, the finger-pointing started. Who was the reason for the destruction of this apartment building? Those newlyweds did it! That was about the time that Christina and I started to cry. Tears sometime bring sympathy. And while it did save us immediate persecution, we really began trying to figure out how the fire actually did start. Immediately our thoughts went to the grill that we kept on the balcony. Maybe we hadn’t turned off the gas. Maybe we left it burning after we took our food off and it had ignited the fire that awoke us on this fine morning. Of course that idea was put to rest when we realized that we had never actually used the grill or even bought a propane tank for it yet. She’s never been much for cooking and I’m quite fond of the microwave, which allows me to cook while I watch television.

We never found out the cause of the fire, thus our neighbors could do little more than theorize about how the newlywed couple next door had burned up their belongings. Yet despite the finger-pointing and the sneers, we moved on with our lives. Members of the apartment complex donated clothes and the smelliest cologne that they had. And after sleeping on the floor of a vacant apartment across the street for a couple of weeks, I began to notice the similarities between the floor and my previous thirty year-old mattress.

Obviously while I complain that we are the unluckiest couple on the face of the earth, I ignore such benefits as the fact that we have a permanent conversation starter. “Hi, I’m Brad and this is Christina. Have we told you yet that a fire burned our apartment down and destroyed our best underwear?” In fact, there were several benefits that came with this disaster. We gained first hand knowledge that fire doesn’t run away when you scream at it. We learned that our dog was actually good for something besides the entertainment of watching him chase his tail for six hours at a time. But the most important lesson that we learned through this disaster is that God protects us and that he allows things to happen for our own good. Two weeks after the fire, my old trusty truck quit becoming so trusty and refused to move from his home in the parking lot. The insurance money from the fire, however, was enough to refurnish the new apartment and give me a nice down payment on another car. It was an experience that took a couple of months of our life to straighten out, but we gained knowledge we could never have gained from advice, as well as lessons on resiliency. Sometimes when we won’t listen, God just has to show us that we need him.

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