fire, mandals, and tastefulness

Last night Ben and I were sitting on the porch after dinner, and Ben thought it'd be a good idea to light a sparkler. This is the man who fell into an open manhole cover last week. So naturally he holds the sparkler directly over his body, rather than out in the yard like a normal safety-minded person. After it's burned for a while, the top part of the sparkler breaks off. Into his lap. He says "oh, it fell in my lap" and kind of looked at it for a few seconds. Then he realized it was burning him. So he threw the remaining sparkler down, and it landed on his paper napkin, which caught fire, and he stood up to get the sparkler off his lap. Turns out he burned a hole straight through his good mail-deliverin' shorts and to his leg. Fortunately we were able to put the napkin out before it lit the whole house on fire. Later on, he fell down the stairs into me. Fortunately neither of us was severely injured.

But wait. More adventures to come. Shopping next. I finally bought a papasan chair, which I've been wanting for almost ten years now. So we went to pick that up, since it wouldn't fit in my car. Then we went to Dunham's, where Ben got mandals and also a new bat. He insisted on sleeping with the new bat. He's still asleep now. He has probably knocked himself unconscious with the new bat.

Then, unfortunately, we ended the night at the Sandbar, the outdoor bar at Sandcastle, despite my vow never to darken the door of that trashy trashy place ever again. It was Sean's birthday, and as I try to be a tasteful person generally, I found that saying "your choice in bars is not to my liking, despite it being your birthday" was less tasteful than the bar itself. But only slightly. I tried not to pay attention, so it wasn't too bad.