Tonight I attempted to use my fireplace for the first time. Yes, I live in central Arizona and I have a fireplace. Don’t ask me who designed the apartments around here, because it doesn’t make much sense to me either.
Anyway, I embark on my journey to purchase the essentials for a relaxing evening: macaroni & cheese, gas, cigarettes, charge up my mPower card (electricity), and potentially find some inexpensive firewood.
When I arrived home, I was ecstatic at the thought of finally putting this damn thing to use. Might as well when it’s only this cold for a short period during the year. Ben talked me through this building-a-fire process and I was gleaming with excitement, “I feel like a Wilderness Girl! Do I get a badge for this?” I ask him. He laughed and said “we’ll see.”
So I get this puppy going almost instantly (using only firewood and newspaper) and I felt proud. Within minutes the bloody fire alarm is going off, Peaches was having a panic attack or whatever cats do when they get upset, and I’m raging with fury as my evening by the fire went up in flames….literally.
I ended up opening up all the windows, sliding glass door to the balcony, and hiding Peaches in the bedroom until I could figure out what to do with this mess.
The smart thing would have been to just stay calm and put it out with water, right? Since my mind was in 237 different places (from a lack of taking my daily dose of Adderall) I freak the fuck out, start cursing at the fire alarm to “shut the fuck up already”, and completely dismiss Ben’s countless attempts (via Skype) to get me to calm down and help me put this madness to an end.
So I run frantically into the kitchen, open 3 or 4 cabinets in search of something to fill up with water and I’m dumb enough to ignore all the options but I end up choosing a measuring cup. As I’m filing it up with water, I’m screaming at the faucet telling it to “hurry the fuck up already” as if my raging demand was going to actually make a difference.
Within a few minutes I had the fire out. Now my apartment reeks of charred fireplace soot and the sound of my enraged screams are still echoing off the cathedral ceiling. So much for my evening by the fire and the Wilderness Girl badge I was hoping to earn.
The Untitled Truth 
To be fair those logs ignited as if they’d been soaked in lighter fluid for 3 weeks – that surprised the hell outta me. I have the same size fire place though – so it should have been able to handle it. My guess is the vent was stuck.
Don’t worry you’ll earn that badge yet. 😉