Fears

Fear.  We all have things we're afraid of.  Most of us probably suffer from the same handful of fears like: fear of finding yourself naked in front of an audience; fear of being stranded with a flat in some remote location without a spare tire (and no cell service); fear of being eaten by a ________ (shark, bear, spider, snake, killer white rabbit). Then we have our own "personal" fears.  Mine include fear of crowds (probably because I'm short), malls, falling (not heights, just the falling part), and fire.  [I won't make fun of your fears, so don't make fun of mine!]

I want to address the last one - fire.  Now, I'm not afraid of hanging out around a campfire or BBQ or anything like that.  My fear is in the lighting of said fire.  As a Girl Scout many years ago, one of the last badges I earned was my fire starting badge - NOT because I couldn't build a fire (that was easy), but I couldn't light the darn match.  With much time and moral support from my friend and neighbor (also a Girl Scout), I finally managed to do it and got my badge.  Today I can light a match and start a fire. . . I just couldn't light the stove in my tearbaby.  Yes - I am a wuss!  I had been afraid to light my stove since I got the tearbaby - something about blowing the trailer & myself up when I put match to stove.  I hate lighting gas stoves - they always make that exploding sound when they light and it scares the bejeebas out of me every time!  I think my fear lies in exposing explosive gas to flame.  Now, I'm not Einstein, but WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT??????   Explosive gas and fire to me is like worms and Tequila - just because we put them together doesn't mean they should go together.  (Then again, my one and only experience with Tequila proved that after drinking Tequila you just don't give a damn about the worm - "Worm?  What worm?").  But we are talking about my fear of lighting my stove not my night with Tequila.

So, I knew I had to get over this fear or live on PB &J sandwiches and cold showers for the next several years - not what I envisioned for my new life.  While camping with the Tear Jerker's group back in July, someone reminded me that my little stove was removable from the counter-top and could be set-up on top of a table.  Oh boy, a safe way to light the stove and NOT blow up the tearbaby!  Finally a solution.  So I decided that when I got home, I would take the stove out and set it up far away from the trailer and practice lighting it before my next camping trip. 

Stove in it's place in the counter

Stove removed for use on a table top

Jump ahead to this past weekend - I'm off on my next camping trip - has the stove been lit?  NOT!  But with much thanks to my camping neighbors for their moral support and the wife's volunteering her husband's assistance should I need it, I DID IT!  I LIT MY STOVE!!!  It wasn't scary at all - didn't even make a noise when I lit it!  No little explosion burst or anything!  What a perfect stove.  I LOVE IT!  I really like the versatility of it - that I can take it out of the counter-top and use on a picnic table if I want or leave it as is.  I'm going to have my dad make me a little cover for the hole for when I take the burner out - so I don't lose things down in the cupboard.  

Now the story doesn't end there.  You know how you often get yourself all worried into a tizzy the longer you put something off - and come to find out that you made it so much worse than it actually was? (mountain / mole hill scenario)  Well, I am an expert at that, so much so that I fail to see anything else.  All this time I was so afraid of lighting the stove for fear of it malfunctioning and blowing up the tearbaby that I hadn't thought about any other potential problems in regards to lighting it.  So here I am, stove all set up on the picnic table, stove instructions laid out in front of me (read over several times just to be sure!), and I reach for my lighter thingy to light the stove.

I pull on the trigger and nothing happens.  I try again and it doesn't move.  I go to the camper and pull out the package it came in and read the instructions - "Depress safety mechanism.  Depress trigger. Adjust flame". O.K. easy enough.  I depress safety mechanism (darn that is hard to depress and hold while depressing trigger), trigger is depressed - Look Flame!  Oh, flame goes out.  Couple more tries, realize must keep safety mechanism depressed to keep flame lit.  Hmmm.  One hand to hold down safety mechanism, one hand to depress trigger.  Oh look, I'm out of hands.  Now how the heck am I supposed to turn the knob on the stove?

By the way, dinner was delicious!