Conroe, Texas

Now that I let everyone in on my secret past time of the burn pile, it almost appears that my FIL reads my blog. I walk into his house last night and pretty much the first thing out of his mouth was some snide remark about the chair and how it was never going to burn. Now, I would normally just go home, pour a ½ gallon of gasoline on the thing and be done with it, but after last night I took it personally. It wasn’t going to be a simple pour and torch job; I wanted to do it like a pro. That means build a real fire and let it have its natural way the damned chair without using any petroleum products. It’s taking pride in my work or in this case, my hobby that puts this kind pressure on me.

So, this morning I go in search of my fire building supplies. First off, I use dryer lint for my kindling. It is just the best thing for starting a fire the old fashioned way. Today though, my wife was shredding old bills and bank statements, so I grabbed a couple of handfuls and headed for the burn pile. Part of me was worried that this would doom the whole endeavor, but what the hell, if the shredded paper didn’t do the job then I would just go get my stash of lint and start over. The goal is burn the hell out of a chair, not build the perfect fire. Next thing I know I have a good base of shredded paper, shoved between two large logs, and covered with lots of nice dry twigs. This whole construct was covered by THE CHAIR.


The picture shows the sheer beauty and simplicity of what I was attempting to do. Start fire, burn chair, and dance a jig of success. Three matches later I had a great flame. The paper was an impressive fire starter, rivaling my usual lint and the game was on. Crackling flames, smoking wood, and a soon to be burning chair were going to start my day off just right.


Don’t those flames look great? For only using three matches and no gasoline it is not only a thing of beauty, but also a construct of great simplicity, which show cases my ability with dry material and a match. I would go as far as saying it was a work of art. I walked away to do some chores in the garden and eat lunch happy in the knowledge that when I returned, the offending chair would be gone and I could gloat a bit to my FIL the next time I saw him. The only problem was that four hours later the fire was out and that damned chair was still perched on top of the burn pile. It was laughing at me, mocking me, and gloating about my inability to destroy it. The urge to go get the gas and soak the whole show welled up inside me, but I fought it down and decided to investigate further before I took such an angry route. I poked and prodded the burn pile to uncover hot coals, but there didn’t seem to be any. That meant the fire had burned out without doing its job. I didn’t run for the gas, instead I went and got three handfuls of shredded bills and stuffed them between the two logs, stacked more twigs on top, centered the chair on the burn pile and grabbed a small, yet burnable looking log from the “to burn” pile.


My second construct as you can see is larger. More paper, more twigs and of course a back up log to toss on top. Once I got the flames going this time, I allowed the twigs to burn down a bit, then put the back up logs on the fire, under the chair. It may take all night, but the chair will die. I swear by all that I hold dear that the chair will burn. I will not be defeated in this battle.


And you thought life in Conroe, Texas was boring?