The year was 2007; a foot-high wooden pyre was blazing in the middle of an empty cul-de-sac as a rage-stricken man in a red t-shirt and boxer shorts ran out onto the lawn to confront me and my friends. Yup…that blaze of glory in the middle of the street was our handiwork.
The event was sparked by collective boredom among me and my five friends. A series of circumstances of which I can’t fully recollect had led the six of us to be strapping two cans of Axe body spray together, surrounding it with pieces of broken plywood, and lighting it on fire with a match. After the flames spread over the Axe cans, they simultaneously burst open in a mini-explosion and flames began to jet out from their sides. When we had later recovered the cans, I took notice of the fact that the bold-printed “Warning: Flammable” label on one of the cans had been singed away by flames.
After we lit our fire for the sake of lighting a fire, one of the nearby neighbors from around the cul-de-sac came running out dropping F-bombs left and right and threatening to call the cops. The man likely at first glance thought that we were a bunch of psychotic arsonists out on a home-burning crusade, even despite the fact that our relatively small blaze was nowhere near a house. Still, given the circumstances, I can’t say I blame the guy for being as enraged as he was.
Out of sheer dumb luck on our part, the man managed to cool off. After a few minutes of yelling and dropping every curse word in the book, he finally let us off Scott-free, telling us that if he saw us around again then he would call the police. My friend doused out the mock fire with a water bottle, another friend recovered the cans, I picked up the pieces of singed wood, and the six of us took off down the street on our bikes.
I later sat up in bed for half of the night with a guilty conscience, as if I had committed a murder and that the cops would at any moment arrive at my house to apprehend me.
What’s the point of this story? Well, for one, I should not work in pyrotechnics. But no; the real point of the story is the fact that since that night, since that seemingly insignificant incident, I had rarely taken another risk of my own volition.
The thing about me is that I’m a very docile, down-to-Earth person. Never in my life would I have categorized myself as a thrill-seeker or one that takes risks, particularly risks in which my own physical well-being is at stake. For me, the possible outcome of something bad happening to me or a higher authority figure punishing me for my actions outweighed any monetary adrenaline that came with egging a house on Halloween, or getting wasted at a house party, or whatever other trouble kids are getting into nowadays. When my friends were out at a party, I was sitting at home watching Saving Private Ryan for the thousandth time. This was my lifestyle and I was content with it.
I often wonder what the source of this phobic fear of the exciting night-life had stemmed from. Perhaps it could be attributed to the values that my parents had instilled in me throughout my childhood or the fact that they had raised me too well. If something had gone wrong in my childhood, I likely would have been more inclined to be more adventurous and thrill-seeking.
So, have I become a paranoid shut-in and a law-abiding goody-two shoes? Probably. But, I’ve also never tasted what it feels like to hit rock bottom either. I’ve never had to have my friends drive me home because I got myself so F’ed up in one way, shape or form. I haven’t gone out and gotten a girl pregnant. I haven’t done any manner of things that I may live to regret for years to come nor started a chain reaction of events that would lead me to spend twenty years in a jail cell for some crime that I would unwittingly commit.
Still though, I often ask myself if I may have benefitted somehow, had things been different. If I had gone out to those parties; if I had relaxed and let loose a little bit more, would I today be a better, wiser person somehow? Maybe if I had made those mistakes, I could have learned from them and advanced myself. Maybe, because I never tasted much of that excitement and thrill, I’ve become soft and sensitive. I may allow myself in the future to be walked all over by other people because I’m not assertive enough.
How could I know what the course of my life would have been if I hadn’t taken a gamble here and there?
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