80 pound log vs. 20 pound fireplace

January 09, 2012

Air Line Pilots, as a species, are cheap.  It doesn't matter if they fly 19 seat Jetstreams or Boeing 747s across the pond.  As a rule, there are 5 things a Pilot will not pay for: #1 Airport parking, #2 a newspaper, #3 shampoo, #4 toilet paper, and #5 sex... and number 5 is negotiable.  Keeping this in mind, let's review the story about free firewood.

Once upon a time, my pilot husband was driving through a park and noticed a very large log that had been cut from a fallen tree.  Given his "pilotness" he pulled over his Mercedes Benz and loaded the very large log into the trunk, gleeful, that we would have hours of free fireplace action due to his resourcefulness.  He promptly came home, and shoved said 80 pound log into our meager 20 pound fireplace.  While said log stuck out precariously, he was convinced it would burn back to front, allowing him to shove it further into the hearth as it ignited.

Needless to say, it did not.  Instead, the 80 pound log, now fully involved in flame, rolled out of the fireplace into the middle of our living room.  It burned through the carpet.  It burned through the padding.  It burned through the subfloor.  It could not be picked up with fireplace tongs, as it was 80 pounds.  It could not be handled manually, as it was fully involved in flame.  So the AngryPilotWife, fell back on her Flight Attendant training, and covered the log in wet towels, turning the house into a sauna, and finally rolled it outside where it could be completed soaked, extinguishing the fire.

As the soot stained condensation dripped from our formerly white ceiling, and the molten mess that was formerly wall to wall carpet cooled, my husband looked at me with total love and appreciation and said, "Honey, you were awesome".  And all I could do was look at that man and say "I am so getting a pig".  (the Pot-Bellied kind, not the Pilot kind... already got one of those).