Some good friends recently moved to Arizona (for reasons we'll never understand), and on their way out they sold us their big outdoor propane grill for $30. This was great, because I've been wanting a grill for some time, but have never made the effort to try to sell Shelly on the idea. So our new grill isn't exactly new, but it's great.

Yesterday for lunch, I decided I would grill up some hot dogs on the new machine. It would be only the second meal we'd made on it. But I understood how it all worked and invited Ellie out onto the deck with me to light it up. Although at the time, I thought I was doing everything right, I now realize I wasn't. I left the propane on too long before trying to light it up, and it didn't light on my first couple of tries, and a few other things weren't exactly right. Then on maybe my third or fourth try, it lit. As there was a cloud of propane gas hovering over the grill, a huge ball of fire appeared and raced toward my head.

Ellie screamed. I jumped back. In less than a second, the fireball was gone and the grill was simmering just like it should. But Ellie was inconsolable. "Fire! Fire!" she cried. And boy, did she cry. She ran back inside and refused to go back out. It took both me and Shelly holding her for several minutes before she calmed down. Frankly, I don't blame her. The fireball was big enough that for that split second, all I could see was the color orange. I felt the whooshing of warm (but not really hot) air on the left side of my face. Ellie wasn't nearly as close to it, but she saw the fire near her daddy's face, and that can upset a three-year-old.

I joked to Shelly, "Do I still have an eyebrow?" and fingering it, found that I did. After getting Ellie calmed down, I went back onto the deck to put the hot dogs on. For some reason, I put my hand on top of my head, and that's when I noticed it: I had singed a good portion of my hair.

I looked in the glass sliding door like a mirror, and saw tiny curls of charred hair like the flocking of a tacky Christmas tree, all over the left side of my head. I rubbed my hand briskly on the area, and little burnt pieces fell off. I showed Shelly and we had a good laugh, but then I realized how serious this could have been. The fireball wasn't even so hot it was even a tiny bit painful, but it had gotten me nevertheless. Before leaving for church, Shelly had to give me a little bit of a trim, to eliminate those few singed hairs that didn't fall off when I rubbed them. I'm no worse for wear, and you can't tell the difference now, but I'll certainly be more careful in the future when I play with fire.

And who knows if Ellie will ever agree to eat a hot dog again.