DYEING MOHAIR – PART II
My brother-in-law, John, has agreed to help me light the camp stove so I can steam my dyed fleece; I’d ask hubby’s help but he hates anything more complicated than turning on a light switch…and admits that even that baffles him on especially dark nights.
I knew I couldn’t light the camp stove using a book of matches, and I knew I wanted something longer than a wooden kitchen match. I also knew that a fireplace match wouldn’t keep me far enough from harm’s way. Nor would it light the propane fast enough for me to hightail it to the house once the thing was lit. I needed something bigger and better than a match. I needed…the Olympic torch…but I knew that was out of the question so I headed back to the hardware store.
Either it was my lucky day, or the manager had just come back from his break because, although some of the sales people were hiding down less popular aisles so they could talk to each other on their walkie-talkies, there were several of them offering help to every customer they could find. My helper caught me before the automatic door slid shut behind me.
“I have to light a propane stove so I need something better than a match to do it,” I said to him.
“We don’t got nothin’ like that,” he replied.
“I think I’ll look in the patio section and see what you do have,” I told him.
Evidently curious to see what I’d find there, he went with me. Before even entering the patio section I saw, hanging on an end rack, a barbecue lighter shaped like a gun with a very long nose.
“Maybe this will work,” I mumbled to myself.
“Nuh uh,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re gonna light a propane tank you need somethin’ bigger than that,” he stated.
“I’m not going to light the tank,” I tried to explain, but he cut me off, and whipping out a walkie-talkie he pressed the talk button.
“Caroline! Caroline! You there?!” he shouted into the unit.
“Yeah,” Caroline shouted back through the static.
“Caroline,” you got anything long, real, real long, you can use to light things with, over there?”
I wanted to tell him that I didn’t plan to light the camp stove from the neighbor’s yard, but I doubt he would have listened anyway.
“No,” she yelled back. “Nothing like that over here.”
I started to reach over and take one of the barbecue lighters from a peg, but my helper put his hand out and stopped me.
“Caroline,” he said, once again into the walkie-talkie, “haven’t you got something?...like a long stick or somethin’?”
“A stick won’t work,” I told him, inundated with visions of me lighting the stove, then running for the house with a flaming stick in my hand.
Again he stopped me before I could get my hands on one of the barbecue lighters.
“No. Nothing like that over here,” Caroline repeated.
“Then how about a long pole? Something she can tape a match to? This lady needs somethin’ to light her propane tank with!”
“I’m not lighting the tank!” I snarled, nearly as frustrated as him. “I want to light…” But before I could add, “…a camp stove” a man walked up and asked my helper where the nuts and bolts were. Now I could have told the man, having spent most of the previous day in that aisle buying unnecessary items, but instead I took the opportunity while my helper was distracted, to grab a barbecue lighter from the rack.
“Thanks for your help,” I called over my shoulder as I ran for the check-out stand.
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