I tried to burn the house down.

Well I have to admit it. I have a hard time spelling teh, I mean the......

First off because of Jen's comment about Scott grilling he demanded that I post this story exactly how it happened. He was not home, nor did he had a hand in any of this,other than telling me where the fire extinguisher was. Thanks Jen (you made me laugh)

Ok, I am putting off the inevitable, I about burned the house down. Shhhhh, don't tell my landlords. So here is the story. On Friday Amber came over to visit me and have dinner. I got some yummy fresh corn and I wanted to grill it. I love grilled corn on the cob. Here is how you do it, for those of you who want a great summer treat without the fire part. I took my corn, still in the husks, and I soaked them in a bucket of water for 20-30 minutes, this does 2 things, first it allows the husks to get water-logged so they wont' burn, but they will char, and it steams teh corn, so you get some steamed and smoked corn and it is to die for. So I was grilling corn and chicken and having a good day. First I shoudl tell you that Scott was out on a wrecker call in Snowville and was nowhere around. So Amber was here and we had just finished dinner and I went out back and there were still 3 ears of corn that weren't quite finished, so I turned the grill off, yes I am sure I turned it off, and left the corn there to finish cooking. Amber left and i was cleaning up when Mason said "mommy smoke" so i looked out on the deck and sure enough there was smoke. I went outside and saw there was fire coming out of my propane tank, not my grill. It was up against the house and I could see it melting the siding but it had not caught fire yet. I tried to lift up the lid to see if the inside was on fire, but it was too hot. So I very calmly called Scott to tell him that I was gonig to call the fire department, but to not be worried, and he said there was a fire extinguisher down stairs. Now I knew not to put water on a grease fire, and since this was a grill, teh chances that grease was involved was pretty high, so I ran down stairs and got the fire extinguisher to find out it was almost out of stuff, but I decided to give it a try anyway. I was able to extinguish the fire on the propane tank, and then used my grill scraper to roll teh grill away from the house, to find out that the fire was on the tube leading from the propane tank to the grill and i had essentially a blow torch on my back deck. The propane tank was too hot to touch, so I then used the hose to cool down the tank, and spray up under my siding to get any hot spots, and then I was able to turn off the gas that was leaking.

I was then horrified to see that it had indeed melted my siding. NOthing had caught fire, luckily, but my siding is toast, as is my grill. Scott swears he is not buying me a new grill, and that I will not be allowed around fire for the rest of the summer, but I am sure the next time I ask what he wants for dinner and he says throw some chicken on the grill, he will run out and buy me one.

That is my story. Please don't let this stop you from making grilled corn. Oh, I forgot to tie it all together. The best explaination we could come up with was one of the corn husks had some hot embers when I turned it off and the wind kind of kicked up and sparked the fire. It somehow followed teh grease trail and burned the supply tube from teh take to teh grill and just burned right through it, and Scott had literally just filled the tank, so it was just burning the propane left in the tank.

I am glad we are all okay, and I have learned to make sure all my corn is finished when I am, or to take it off the grill to keep this from happning again. I have been grilling for over 15 years, and I really really like it, and this is the first mis-hap i have ever had.