I have always looked up to my older brother, there’s no question about it. So, it is no surprise that at four years old I found myself standing on one of our kitchen stools, looking in a cupboard for a pack of matches. You see, my brother had this wonderful idea of playing Indians (I guess today it would be called “Native Americans”) in our backyard. He wanted to dance around a fire, but I guess he never took into consideration that our backyard consisted of a small clearing surrounded by hundreds of trees, or that we were in the middle of dry season in Florida.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

I’m standing on this stool feeling around for matches while my brother is playing lookout just in case my mother decided to drop whatever she was doing to walk into the kitchen. I’d be lying if I said that I had a bad feeling about what I was up to, because I really didn’t. I thought that this would be the best thing since our last experiment in which we tried to make our own insect killer that would make us rich enough to put a baseball diamond in our front yard (it turns out that ants are not affected by a water and toothpaste mixture).

Once I had accomplished my mission and the matches were in my hand, my brother and I ran for the backyard. He lit the first match, threw it on the ground, and then stomped it out. He lit the next match, threw it on the ground, and then stomped it out again. I don’t know what exactly was going through his mind at that time, but for some reason these tiny flames just were not what he was looking for.

I was ordered to search the yard for stones, and, naturally, I did as I was told. After gathering about 10 or so, my brother took them from me and placed them on the ground in the form of a circle. Once the last stone was in place, he took yet another match and threw it in the middle of the circle. I was ready to stomp it out with my jelly sandals, but my brother yelled at me.

“Your sandals will melt,” he said.

“But you did it,” was my reply.

We went back and forth for a little bit until we noticed that our fire had spread outside of our circle. His eyes got wide and he began to frantically step on the flames. I just watched him as he jumped from spark to spark, trying to put out as much as possible. But, there was no way that he was going to put the flames out this time around.

He then grabbed me by the hand and we ran into the house. I don’t remember what or who it was that let my mother know something had just gone terribly wrong, but the next thing I remember was all of us—my mother and the kids, walking down the street as the sirens on the fire trucks grew nearer.

Needless to say, my brother was in serious trouble. The firefighter lectured him and then my parents grounded him for months. I, on the other hand, did not get punished. I guess my parents were just amazed at my strategic match stealing methods because from that day on, the matches were placed in a different, much higher hiding spot.

Looking back, I guess it’s funny how the person who played a role in my first real brush with danger as a child is now the first person who I call when I feel like there could possibly be another bad situation at hand as an adult.