Goddamit....me and fire. Match made in hell, excuse the pun. Ive had adventures with fire before, sure. But Ive never turned my braai place in to a lava moat. Until today.
Man, it was meant to be a surprise, have a nice braai cooked meal for when wife gets home. SO i mission and do the shopping, get it all ready, and forget one, small thing. The smallest, yet most time saving thing: firelighters. No firelighters, means manual fire with small sticks and paper and nonsense that my time schedule wont be able to handle. But im a man of invention, a man of ideas! ....pity they sometimes shit ideas.
I saw a while back somewhere, prob on the internet or somewhere about starting a fire using candles. IE, wax. So apparently you can use wax to start a fire, pretty dam neat if you ask me, cause i dont have firelighters but i have spans of candles! Ok stop though, add to this, self lighting charcoal briquettes I bought 3 days ago because there were no firelighters when I went to the shops a few days ago. Just....keep that one in mind. I try to light the stupid stuff, it burns for a minute then it goes out, hence the need for some more power to that mix.
And out comes 6 full candles. Proud of my plan, I break that shit up in half, so 12 half sticks of candles, and self lighting charcoal. This shits gotta work!!! Light a dumb briquette, light a candle......place this mess nicely on top of one another so the flame from the briquette burns the candle, and the candle flame/hot wax burns and gets the briquette going....see the logic here? Makes pure sense......except that it turns out this lot, is nothing more than a time consuming way of melting fucking wax, and keeping it warm.
20 minutes.....20 minutes I feed this system.....wax, briquette......wax, briquette........feeling ever more hopeful that at some point I will reach the point of combustion, and have myself a decent fire going. Nada. Nothing. Bit of smoke, a pool of hot wax in the bottom of my braai, a little flame here and there, just to say 'fuck you Donald kak idea'......and thats where I reach.....the stripping. The stripping of my moer. FTS, i lock up the dog, grab the car keys, reverse like a maniac out my drive way cause this shit just aint going to work. I admit defeat, and go but firelighters, I mean im running out of time here man! Luckily the shop is close by, so it took me maybe 10 or 12 mins, return trip to get my goods, park in a narrow garage faster than I should and be back at my braai, firelighters and lighter in hand.
In my absence, one of the self lighting charcoals had managed to actually set alight, and keep a generous amount of wax under it, pretty liquid. Was very pretty, it being red wax, but still nothing was happening. I shove the grid aside, and place four very healthy, very fruitful blocks of firelighter, in to said mass of wet wax. Fuck you wax....check this shit......and I light the first piece.
Now I dont know the actual burning point of wax. Like, at what scientific point of degrees celsius it actually becomes self sufficient to burn like the motherfucker that it does, but evidently that firelighter did know, and didnt give a rats ass. It didnt care, it did exactly what it does at just the right measurement of science, and 'you just made a mess'. That shit got real. But like, real life REAL. the first block almost exploded, I mean are you meant to hear firelighters light with a gasp? Roughly 10 seconds later, the pool of hot wax is bubbling, which is pretty cool cause ive never seen wax bubble!....Wait....is it meant to bubble?
man that first spark of flame to wax was almost beautiful. Would of been more so if i had actually seen it because by this time 2, 3 and 4 firelighter buddies are all alight and theres just bubbling wax around them all. And its at this moment I realize....ek het kak aan gejaag..... that shit turns to water. The incline of my braai, although slight, is enough to make it run straight in to the second compartment of my braai place, yay another 2cm deep lake of deep red puddle!!!
Man, I must be a genius or something, not know my own inner strength or something. Maybe it was bravery, or out right foolishness.....but the next 4 pieces of fire lighter went straight in to that mess. And hey wow, I didnt even have to light it. It was seconds before the 1st, then 2nd, 3rd 4th one of those also just, found life in bottom of that steel barrel and I realized, again and somehow anew.....this was maybe a bad idea.
it was fucking spectacular. firelighters, molten wax, and self lighting charcoal, all doing exactly what it is meant to do...burn the shit out of everything. Like that whole area became a spawn area from hell itself with the intensity of that heat. I have never in my life seen flames reach that high, that fast, and that close to the rafters of what are my small but cozy braai area. I have never gone through a bag and a half of charcoal in 10 minutes (im not sure what i was aiming at here with putting charcoal on that volcano maybe it was panic) and i dam well hope I never go through that again!
I guess the lesson learned here, is that even though you dont always see the flamable nature of things, maybe you should listen. Maybe that shits going to just get up in ure face when you least expect it. And never, ever underestimate candles.
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