Fall Cleaning, Part 1 and 2

This story has two parts. First, Dan and I decided to clean. Then, we decided to clean some more. Read further and you'll see what I mean.

Dan and I have a problem saying no to things. Over the course of the two years we've been roommates, we've acquired lots of stuff that we don't use.

Like pots:


Keep in mind, there are only two of us. This picture isn't a close-up because we wanted to focus on the counter full of pots, it's because that's how far you can back up in our kitchen.

So Dan and I toss things out with abandon (literally) into a to-Goodwill box or two. Exotic spices, years-old food coloring, insect repellant. "Have you ever used this?" I asked Dan about a pound of sea salt he was storing on the top shelf.

"No, but I will. Really."

"Good, because otherwise we should just throw it out now."

We moved things that we wanted to keep but wouldn't use (like a salt and pepper shaker set from Dan's deceased grandmother) to the private clutter of our room. For example, out of the twenty plus knives we had piled up at one point, only five made the cut. But Dan and I both couldn't part from our knife sets complete with the block of wood you stick the knives into.

Eventually we finished throwing things out and I left for the evening. While I was gone, I got a text. "You might want the bug spray after all..." it said ominously. What did that mean? Was there a colony of ants in an undusted corner? But then I got home and saw that Dan had taken the idea of use-it-or-you-lose-it seriously:


So Dan and I camped out in the tent two nights ago.

And so the first cleaning was finished, and part two begins. I'll start with the "after" picture so you don't worry that our house burned down. We're trying to look penitent but have way too much adrenaline from not being dead:


But then Dan and I were talking last night about how when you feel in a rush all the time, watching a flame is good for tranquility. Dan took a pan lid from the to-Goodwill pile, found the birthday candles we had thrown away, and we discovered the joy of fire. For several candles-worth.

Then we realized that all the olive oil we were donating to Goodwill would be a good addition. We were disappointed that no matter how we swished the various oils around, they didn't light on fire. "I thought oil was flammable," Dan mused to himself as we moved on to the lighter fluid I usually reserve for my juggling torches.

The lighter fluid gave a nice effect because it sat on the top and gave a small lake of fire:


The problem was that the lighter fluid diluted the mixture so much that the wax wouldn't congeal again. The solution, of course, was to transfer our concoction to a to-Goodwill pot and heat it up. All the excess would boil off, and we'd have a wax factory on our hands.

When it started smoking, I guessed that something was wrong. "Dan, we should turn the stove off. I don't know why it would smoke like that." We decided I was overreacting and I just moved to turn the heat down.

Then either I jostled the pot or the heat finally got to the solution, because it erupted in flames. When I say flames I don't mean baby coming-out-of-a-lid flames. These flames were at least a foot high and had smoke pouring through the house like they couldn't advertise our disaster fast enough.

This did not help our tranquility. I suggested suffocating the fire with a lid, but we rushed it and only covered half the fire. Dan took out the fire extinguisher.

"Dan, that's a bad idea. It's going to blow everything away!"

But in the heat of the moment, we canned my "use a lid" idea and Dan just opened fire with the fire extinguisher. Flaming oily wax splattered all over the walls that had just been repainted this summer, leaving half the mix still in the pan. I used the lid again, contained the fire, and brought the pan outside, where it suffocated in peace away from our house. And so we decided to do some fall cleaning, again:


The picture is foggy from the smoke. Don't play with matches, kids.