Getting ready for school on cold mornings, my brother and I liked to light the gas stove in the kitchen, pull down the oven door, and sit in front of it with our chairs rocked back on two legs, our cereal bowls in our laps, and our stocking feet up on the oven door. This was a forbidden activity. Dad would complain about it being wasteful of gas, and Mom would complain about the rocked back chairs digging holes in the linoleum flooring. So, we could only do it when they were not around.

As we sat there, toasting our toes and gently rocking back and forth eating our cereal, Puffy, our grey long haired cat, jumped up on the oven door. Her tail got in the oven and immediately exploded in a flash of flame. We tried to leap up to deal with the tragedy, and to save our flaming cat. But, instead our chairs fell over backward, our bowls of Wheaties went flying, and the oven door slammed shut.

We smashed into each other as we frantically struggled to get to the oven door, slipping and sliding on the milk slippery linoleum. The images in our minds were to horrible to describe. How could we have been so stupid and careless? If we had listened to our parents none of this would have happened. Poor Puffy! Why did she have to be sacrificed to make us into good kids. We would never disobey our parents again.

Just then I felt a nudge on my hand. It was Puffy trying to push me out of the way so she could lick up the milk from the floor. She wasn't roasting in the oven after all. She must have jumped down before the oven door slammed shut. Her tail didn't even show any signs of the ordeal except for a few hairs that were singed on the ends. Mom came in the kitchen, saw the mess, and was just about to launch into a blistering tirade until we confessed that "Puffy did it."

"Well put her out, get it cleaned up, and get on to school." she said.

As we cleaned up the mess we decided that the next time we wanted to put our feet in the oven, we would not only check that our parents were not around, but would also first make sure that Puffy was safely outside.

Copyright © Chuck Hintlian
November 4, 2001