Did He Really Do That????? Or, “Here Scarecrow, Want To Play Ball?

My husband’s family lived about an hour away, in Sullivan, Illinois.  We camped a lot and mostly at Shelbyville.  Although there is a nice place in Sullivan, Bo Woods, we spent most of the time in Shelbyville.

One time, my husband, Wes, decided we should leave a day early and spend the night in his mother and father’s driveway and spend the next day with them.  We thought this was a great idea.  However, his parents practically go to bed at dark, which is way too early for us.  Another downfall,  was there was no firepit to sit around there, so we basically had to spend the time in the camper at a pretty early hour.  The camper was right next to their bedroom window as well and we did not want to wake them by being in the yard.

This was actually not a problem as we decided to just play games in the camper.  I told my husband that I wanted to pop some popcorn so he needed to turn on the propane tank.  I still pop our popcorn on the stove in a kettle.  Popcorn is just too good to be made in a microwave!  Yuck!

The kids and I were getting things ready inside of the camper when all of a sudden we saw a very bright orangish, yellow light in front of the camper.  A very bright light!  We  were sort of standing in amazement and wondering what it could be from.  Suddenly, the camper door opened and Wes yelled, “Everybody out now!”   We had no idea what was going on but I quickly shuffled the kids out of the door.  As I got to the bottom of the steps, Wes pointed at me and said, “You are not getting any popcorn!”  Haha.  What a weird guy he is at times.  The kids and I start laughing at him.  He looks so shook up and why can’t we have popcorn? You would have laughed too.  He has this way of “dancing” when he is upset.

Before we had a chance to find out more information from Wes, the bedroom window flew open and his mother and father were looking out and they said in unison, “What is going on?”  The kids and I, of course began giggling at that site.  Their little heads together and the questioning look on their faces was just too much.  Wes quickly and perhaps a little embarrassed, said, “Nothing, go back to bed.”  His parents are so sweet and cooperative.  They said nothing more and down went the window. That little gesture set off our laughing again.  Wes then said, “Everyone back in the camper!”  We can be obedient at times too so in we went.

Okay, so what exactly happened?  Well, first off, my husband is not a stupid man,  but at times……… Haha.  I guess that when he went to turn on the propane tank he discovered that it was empty so he needed to switch over to the full tank.  There is some sort of lever to turn and he could not see the lever.  Since the one tank was turned off and the other one was empty, he flipped out his lighter to see the lever.  I guess this was not the brightest thing for him to do.  Anyway, as he flipped the lever to switch tanks, the remaining fumes escaped the empty tank and BOOM! So, that is what the big light was, flames!  There was no damage it extinguished itself. Well, I guess I left out one small detail.  Apparently there was some damage.  He did burn his hair which was not pleasant to smell and there were these little burned ends on his hair.   His hair did not look the best.  Another minor bit of damage was the loss of his eyebrows. This might have been why the children and I were laughing so much. If I remember right,  we may have called him “Singe” for awhile.

This was not as bad as the time that his father saved him from a similar mistake.  This one could have ended much worse. Before we were married, Wes worked with his father who had a trenching and backhoe business in Sullivan, Sanders Trenching. They were at a job and Wes was filling the trencher up with gas from a tank in the back of a pick up truck.  Wes was standing there with the gas hose in the tank and was bored and just looking around when he noticed there was a spider on the gas tank.  We all know that Wes is afraid of crawling things and he was going to fix that spider!  Wes, without thinking, reached for his lighter and tried to  kill the spider by igniting him.  I am not sure if he got the spider but he definitely got the tank!   This made a noise and then there was Wes screaming.  His father heard  both and ran around and quickly screwed the lid on the fuel tank of the trencher which extinguished the flame.  All I can say is that it is a good thing his father was there and was thinking!

It is also a good thing that Wes quit smoking and no longer carries a lighter with him!