WHERE'S THERE IS SMOKE THERE IS...

I know the expected answer to this is FIRE. Well duh. So why am I even mentioning it? That’s because I want to amend that saying. To me it should be “where there is smoke there is somebody stupid enough to play with fire!”

Let’s be realistic here. Fire doesn’t have a brain. It only exists because somebody gave it life. So if there is smoke we know darn well that whatever fire is the result of some moron playing with matches or whatever who is too stupid to know what happens when you try the “burn it game!”

Now as usual I want to take this via the political kindling point of view. By that I mean a fire is generally some scandal or emergency. And it ALWAYS has a cause. Normally not a necessarily sane one or something you can explain without ending up looking as stupid as the person who cause the fire in the first place.

So naturally I have to use a fire extinguisher in such situations. The type that works best is a big fat LIE. Well in terms of distracting people so they don’t keep asking, “what is causing all that darn smoke?”

Then when I get them to stop asking I obviously turn my attention to figuring a way to actually putting out the fire. If for some reason that takes a while or there is too much damage from the fire then it is time to play “oh look at that” game.

What is that you might ask? I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying “fighting fire with fire?” That’s where you start a second fire to burn up the possible stuff that the first fire might use to keep burning. The idea hopefully with the second fire you have it under some control so it doesn’t end up in a bigger disaster than the first.

I accomplish that by simply finding some scapegoat to blame for the whole thing. In some cases I even do cause a new fire that I can blame on the person and just manage to get them to take the fall for the first one at the same time.

I imagine there might be a few silly folks out there who say, “that totally sucks!” And I would agree. But I ask you a simple question. “Would there be any reason you would expect a guy as selfish and greedy as myself to in any way risk my own butt for some fire or anything else for that matter?” Then shut up and stop whining about fairness.

Which comes to my Limburger Rules for fire fighting. Basically it is “All is fair in love of me and warring on anybody who possibly risks my love of me!” If you don’t like it, well then don’t decide to move to my town.

This has been another installment of life with Rash. As written, edited and told by Rash. It is a truly wonderful tale that deserves to be read for inspiration by anyone looking for a nice sane way to fight certain kinds of fires. Yep, you gotta give me credit in that department. For after all if you don’t make sure you never get your own fingers burnt by the flames then what is the point? You may quote me if you wish!