Life As an Afterschool Special

I think to truly understand why my life is an afterschool special you need to spend the weekend with my family.

They are wonderful, and so much fun, but where my family goes adventure soon follows.

This weekend was no exception.

I was at my mom and dads house in Michigan. On Saturday night we had a house full of guests and my mother wanted to make something for dinner for all of them. She was cooking lasagna, spaghetti and meatballs, and garlic bread all at once while we played cards and caught up on each others lives.

She called for the girls to come and help her and as we walked into the kitchen we saw flames coming from the stove top. The oil from the noodles had spilled over onto the burner and ignited.

Oh yeah, it was on fire.

We all stood looking at it for a moment trying to decide how to put it out. We knew enough to know you couldn’t put water on it.

My little sister Staci was the first to spring into action. She grabbed a towel and started to fan the flame, which of course made it grow.

My Aunt Mindy yelled for my mom to put baking soda on the fire. My mom looked in the cupboard and yelled she didn’t have baking soda, so she reached in and pulled out a box of corn starch and threw it on the flames, which also made it grow.

My Aunt Mindy said “I said baking soda not corn starch.”

My mom yelled back “Its the same thing” and then yelled for my dad to help.

So now my mom, my Dad, my two sisters, my sisters boyfriend Ben, five of my cousins, my aunt, three of my uncles, and I are all standing in the kitchen watching the fire.

My Aunt Mindy yells for salt to throw on the fire and my mom reaches over the stove and grabs a salt grinder and starts twisting.

My aunt tells her that wont work we need baking soda and table salt.

My mom turns and yells. “I don’t have any. What do you want from me. Do you want me to go to the store and get some”

At which point my sisters and I start laughing and are of no use at all.

Finally my sisters boyfriend reaches over and grabs a lid to a pan and throws it over the flames, which causes it to die down but not extinguish, so he sets the lasagna on top of it too. Then me and my dad blow out the fire.

My mom opens the oven to get out the garlic bread and it is on fire too.

There is smoke everywhere, corn starch all over the kitchen and us, the dinner is burnt, and my sisters and I cant stop laughing.

In the end we survived. We laughed and ate burnt Italian. It was wonderful and it was family.

My mother called it the fire of 2005.

And every time we tell the story it gets a little better.

because that’s just part of having a life as an afterschool special.