Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Fire

On Mondays at 5:00, my student Rachel comes for her lesson. This is the only time during the school week that the guys are allowed to play on the computer or watch t.v., so they are fully occupied while I'm with Rachel. This past Monday, at about 6:05, Aaron came to the piano and said, "Mom, there's been a little fire outside, but everything is fine now. We think some teenagers came and started a little fire and left. But we got it out, and everything is fine." So, I went outside and Will had that caca eating look on his face. "Will, have you been playing with matches?" "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" The tears began to fall. "Where is the fire, Will?" He pointed to the cars, both with a full tank of gas. I went around the cars and AHHHH, and big section of the hillside was scorched. The trash can? Melted. The bicycle? All plastic pieces melted. The covering to the firewood? Melted into said wood. Lying on the ground is a little plastic cup and a flower pitcher. As it happened, about 3 minutes before, the neighbor came out for a smoke, saw the smoke, heard the crackle, looked at the guys and said, "Uh, fellahs? Do you need some help?" "WAAAAAAAAAAAAA," cried Will. So, Tracy brought her hose over and put out the fire. As she stood there, hose in one hand, cigarette in the other she said, "You know fellahs, I think you've probably learned a lesson from this. Number one, don't play with matches. Number two, little boys sometimes do stupid things."

As I've told this story, you can't believe the fire stories I've heard about other peoples children and childhoods. Amazing. I'll add some here later as comments.