Congratulations on Accidentally Setting Your Van on Fire!

Your stepdad Franklin told you this would happen, but you didn’t listen.

Today you’re going to wake up shrouded in flames. The pain will be tremendous. Your mattress will have caught fire, ignited by the embers of the lit cigarette you clutched between your lips as you drifted off to sleep. You’ll want to scream, but the heat will choke off the words. You’ll want to surge forward from your bed and burst out of the doors of your van, into the cool night air outside, but your muscles will refuse your commands – you’ll be paralyzed by fear.

Instead you’ll lay there, skin charring, waiting for something, anything, to happen. The pain will be immense, beyond anything you’ve ever felt before as the nerve endings in your tissues singe and go dead. Your life will begin to flash before your eyes, a cavalcade of kegstands and sweet drum solos that only your stepdad Franklin ever heard. You’ll know, absolutely know, for a moment that you are going to die.

And then the back of your van will burst open and the manager of the Walmart where you were sleeping in the parking lot will appear beyond the flames, a red cylinder in her hand. She’ll spout the contents of the canister towards you at tremendous velocity, coating you in it. The flames will cease immediately, the sensation of heat replaced by the most profound cold you’ll ever have experienced.

She’ll stand there with her jaw hanging open while her co-workers mill behind her, each of them independently calling 9-1-1. She won’t be able to walk towards you she’ll be so shocked by your appearance.

When she tells the story years later to your adopted children, she’ll let them know that she was actually heading out to ask you to buy something or leave in keeping with Walmart’s policy regarding people living in their cars. You’ll want to crack a joke, but your lips will still be sealed shut from the van fire at this point, so you’ll just sign one with your hideously deformed hands instead. It’ll be a hoot, and everyone there will laugh uncontrollably.

Congratulations on Accidentally Setting Your Van on Fire!