The summer. Yea, I remember it. I guess it was about 84. No 83. I remember now for another reason.
My ex and I had bought a time share at a camping resort. I never liked it, but she insisted (she got it too). This year, we were new parents (so how I remember the summer). And my mother and my youngest 3 siblings came with us. Youngest! Tova and others are talking about the sexuality of their children, but my sister was 15 and I don’t know if sexually active (I have never asked and am not going to), but she knew what boys were!
So the 6 of us rented a couple of campers and trekked up to the land of peace and quiet. My job was a marathon, so this was the one time of the year that I could relax and forget pressure. Sure! No pressure. Just remember Fahrenheit 451!
We get up to the resort and get our keys. My mother was using that new synthetic oil at the time, so we get there and she 'swears' it is leaking! And has to be looked at NOW.
OK class, after driving a car for 90 minutes, how hot is the exhaust system? Can we say tattoo? I knew you could! Yes it was one of those tiny cars and everything was crammed in. And I could not do a thing with the oil pan plug without - burning my arm on the damn exhaust! Number 1.
She was not leaking either.
So we settled in. The first night we always just bought some KFC so no one would have to cook. The second night, we had some steaks! The only time of the year we ever had steaks! And afterwords, the kids (the younger ones were about 12) wanted to roast Marshmallows for S'more's. I like them too, but did not want to hassle with them that night. SO I was sitting at the table and shooting the bull in my shorts and short sleeves. My youngest sister caught her marshmallow in fire! And was swinging it around to get it away from the heat and to blow it out. And over my leg. And time went into slow motion as I could see it dropping and could do nothing as I was frozen in time. You know that surreal moment. You see it coming, but all you have time to say is "noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo". It actually lasts a lot longer, but if you have been in one of those times, you know what I mean.
Plop! On the knee! Sizzle crack, snap and ouch! Sorry Rice Crispies. Yea, a nice whorl of a scar! My sister was devastated! I was in pain! But she was devastated!
So now I am 2 parts of the fife and drum corps! Right, the arm and the leg. But the vacation had just begun!
A couple of days later, the 15 year old sister's boyfriend came down. He was a jock. Someone I never was for 2 reasons. I never had muscles, and I did have brains. (sorry, I have known a lot of jocks with brains and were friends with them, so this is a Dumb jock). We had been noticing that something had been eating our fish. We kept them on stringers until we were ready to clean them, and usually, a couple were missing.
In steps Mr. hero, the Jock! He discovers it is an eel doing it, so he grabs a baseball bat, and rails back to whack the sucker, and cock! Out like a light. Yep, a goose egg on my noggin. But hey! At least it was not a burn!
After that, I spent the rest of the vacation in hibernation, until it was safe to drive home! I got a lot more rest at work, and the medical bills were a lot less too.
Thus ended my summer of burns!