House of Weasels: FIre! Fire! Call 911!

Does a hurricane spark stupidity in people? Seriously, there have been two incidents in the past two weeks that have made me think that the answer is Yes. Mind you, I live in a suburban neighborhood in Cypress, Texas. You know, where the houses have maybe 6 feet between them and a wooden fence designating whose property is whose. Typical suburbs.

My neighbor gets the genius idea that he is going to burn the tree limbs, leaves and pine needles that fell in his yard, from the hurricane, in his back yard. Yes, I said burn. He piles his debris with brown leaves on bottom, then tree limbs and then green leaves and other things on top. He then proceeds to light it on fire in his back yard. Really? This sounded like a good idea at the time? Wow! The neighbors, who all are lacking electricity and who have their windows open because it is a nice, cool, windy day, are all in a panic because the black smoke from Smokey the Bear's camp fire is now blowing into their houses. They were about to call 911 when someone decided to investigate where the smoke is coming from. One neighbor goes into the back yard of Smokey the Bear and sees what he has done and says, "What the hell!?!?!" Smokey's eyes were big as saucers as he stuttered through, "I'm Sorry". No harm no foul, This Time. Thank goodness. We won't soon let him live it down but we did let him live.

The next genius, identity unknown, in our neighborhood decided that he would make a pile of broken fence pieces and burn them in the empty field behind our houses. (Side Note: I am going to place my bet that this person is a man because I don't know any woman who would even have the thought in her head to burn anything to get rid of it. We would just put it by the curb on trash day.) He obviously didn't notice that the field was completely covered by brown, dead, dry grass. He lit his pile of wood and to his surprise, I am sure, the field caught on fire and spread. I wasn't aware of any of this until my friendly neighbor came over and asked me if someone was burning trash behind my house. I said that I had no idea. She said that there was a lot of smoke coming from the field behind me and asked if I could see the field from my yard. I told her to come on back because since Ike hit we had a panoramic view of that field from our back door. When we went outside and saw the field it was amazing. It was like the California wild fires, on a much smaller scale of course. There were fire fighters out there along with some neighbors with water hoses trying to put out the flames. It got a little too close for comfort to my house and scary that if my neighbor hadn't told me what was going on I would have not known until it was too late. The good thing was that they put it out quickly and nothing was damaged. This time.

To the two geniuses we have living among us, please use your brain next time. Think to yourself, "Should I be doing this?" And if there is any doubt in your thick skull then don't do it. Remember, you do not live on a farm you live in the suburbs and we have trash pick up on Wednesday and Saturday. We will let it slide this time and chalk it up to a slip in judgment but next time I will make you a "Stupid" sign and you will be required to wear it.