The Short and Sad life of My Tater Twister


Unlike most things in my life, my wedding was fairly disaster free. It was as perfect a day as I could have hoped for.
Angie looked stunning in her Wedding dress that she had made herself. My friends and family all showed up to celebrate our union , without anyone getting into any sort of altercation with anyone else. There was no drunken fool making a jackass out of himself with a lamp shade. Really what more could anyone ask out of your big day? Other then a Disk Jockey who seemed to know almost nothing about music the only bad experience I had was when a group of nieces and nephews decided to decorate our car. Not having any shaving cream or whipped cream to spray on our car my Mom got the bright idea that my nieces should use tub after tub of margarine.
They did a good job covering the car. It was so slick and greasy it was hard to grip the door handle to open the car door. One of our wedding guest drove into town and stole a squeegee from the gas station. It still took 20 minutes to get the window clean enough to see to drive in the rain. And with all that margarine the rain beaded off better then any wax job I've ever seen in my life. The worst was around noon the next day when I saw my car baking in the heat like a giant red potato.
Later that day, my brothers, sister, and my parents all posed for a family photo.



Angie and I spent the next week driving around visiting friends and relatives , with a car smelling vaguely like Parkay. Other then that we found ourselves settling in comfortably to our married life. In our kitchen sat all of the gifts that Most of our friends and relatives had given us. ( I'm still waiting for a gift from some of them. You know who you are.) I was particularly looking forward to using the Tater Twister we had gotten. I had never tried anything like it before. I was so eager to try it , I had already bought some potatoes. They sat on the counter next to the Twister awaiting their cruel fate.
Soon our first week of married life ended and we went back to work. For the first time in years there didn't seem to be another crisis looming over the horizon. Life was good. Angie and I were as happy as two people could be. Our son Ethan was getting healthier everyday and needing his baby monitor less. My Dad and I were getting along better then we had ever before. My job was incredibly undemanding.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well since you ask....
At 7 in the morning of Oct 5 1993, Ten days after we were married , I got off work and walked the whole block home to our first floor apartment. Angie had the day off so I could sleep as late as I wanted , and not worry about Ethan. ( During the last 4 months we had gotten used to awakening at the slightest beep from his monitor.) I was very hungry that morning but too tired to fix myself anything to eat. I asked Angie if she could cook me something special for lunch.
"I'll think about it", she told me.
In the next room Ethan did what he did best at 4 months. He slept. Angie laid in bed for a little talking with me. Around 8 she got out of bed . Soon I drifted off to a very peaceful slumber.
Almost 3 hours later I was half awoken by the sounds of my wife running back and forth in the kitchen and a strange burning smell. She must be cooking lunch, my half sleeping brain told me. I love my wife , I thought , but she's no cook. At one point I think I saw Angie run in front of the bedroom wearing a towel over her head with just a bra and a black denim skirt on.
"What are you doing," I mumbled very loudly into my pillow. I could faintly hear the sound of running water coming from the kitchen.
"The back porch is on fire!"
Not understanding in the slightest what she had just said , I mumbled again very loudly into my pillow, "Well cut it out." With that I went back to sleep.
For 90 seconds.
Finally Angie's words penetrated the fog of sleep in my brain. Throwing a purple t-shirt that said " I wish everyday were Father's Day!" and a pair of sweatpants on, I ran out to the back porch. Angie was pouring a pitcher of water on some smoldering leaves at the corner of the house. She wasn't wearing any shoes.
"I can't stop the smoke", she said " It was like this when I got out of the shower!". Still very tired , I looked around. In the yard behind us was a pile of burning leaves. Obviously some of those leaves had blown over towards my house. " I've been pouring pitcher after pitcher of water and it's still smoking!" I looked closer at the smoke. It seemed to be actually coming out of the corner beam of our house. I looked up about 3 feet above my head. The white paint on the corner beam was turning black.
" Look!" I pointed at the burning area. Angie looked up. "We've got to get Ethan out of here.!" Angie ran back into the kitchen to get Ethan. I followed close behind her. While she stopped to throw a shirt on, I ran to the living room and dialed 911. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Angie grabbing the baby and going out the front door. She left the baby monitor on the floor. After hanging up from 911, I called my parents who lived only a few blocks from my house. I told Mom that the sirens she was going to be hearing in a few seconds were coming to my house , but not to worry Angie and I had gotten out ok. I then ran out the front door where Angie stood on the sidewalk ,holding Ethan in her arms.
A police officer showed up and asked if everyone was out. Angie told him she wasn't sure about the two apartments upstairs. The officer ran upstairs and soon came down with the poor scared young woman who lived in one of the apartments above us. Leaving Angie in the front by the police car , I ran around to the back of the house to where all this had started. Smoke was now pouring out my back porch and kitchen window.
Why were the fire trucks taking so long , I thought. They were taking forever.
Truth be told, it was probably only a few minutes after I called but as anyone who's ever watched their house slowly catch fire can attest, time seems to move at a far different pace. Finally I could hear the sirens. Thank God, I thought. This might not be so bad after all.
At that moment my back porch and kitchen exploded in a fireball.
"Shit."
All I could think of that moment was of my poor little Tater Twister. We had never had the chance to make little tater rings together,and now we never would. I can only hope that sitting on my kitchen counter he went quickly.
My second thought was that the kitchen was right next to where Ethan slept. If Angie hadn't had been home that morning I might not have woke up in time to save him.
A great anger began to well up inside of me. Probably more anger then I had ever felt in my life. I turned around and looked at the pile of leaves that had been left burning. I looked around and saw the man who had left his fire unattended. He was now standing a few feet from his back door watching all my wedding presents go up in smoke , including my poor mourned Tater Twister. I started to walk over toward him with a small smile on my face. He must not have liked that smile because the moment he saw me he dropped the rake and ran into the house.
( Why was I smiling? I don't know. But whenever my Dad was truly truly angry with us as children he would smile. We were very frightened when he did that. Apparently I inherited that smile. Thank God I didn't inherit his temperament.)
After my little fire starter of a next door neighbor ran into his house I came to my senses. I looked around and could see Angie walking away from our burning house. Ethan was asleep in her arms. She was still in her bare feet.
"I'm getting Ethan out of here! I'm going to your parents!"
Before I could say anything , the fire trucks came tearing around the corner. Within moments they were battling the fire. At one point a younger fireman came out the back. He saw me standing there and motioned for me to come over.
"Yeah?"
"Are those your comic books" he said kind of eagerly.
A very puzzled look came over my face. "What?"
"Are those your comic books?"
"Uh...Yeah." Where the hell was he going with this?
"I threw a few blankets over them to protect them from the smoke and water. " That was very nice of him I thought. "Do you collect Marvel or D.C. ", he asked
"What.......Um ....Marvel." This was just getting silly. "Um...Could you like,....Try to safe some other stuff?"
"Oh Yeah . Sure." With that he ran back into my house.
Sadly that would not be the most surreal moment of the day.
Very quickly they got the fire under control , and I was soon walking though my wrecked apartment. They told me Ethan's room had been seconds from catching fire. Almost everything was ruined. The Kitchen and everything thing in it was completely destroyed.
Thankfully when I ran out of my bedroom I shut the doors behind me. Some of our clothes and all of our photo's were safe. And thanks to a very friendly fireman my comics survived. Among some other books that survived were Ethan's baby book. Only singed a little bit around the edges.
All of my family came by that day. By noon I was getting very tired of hearing people say,"Well at least no one got hurt."Tell that to the pile of melted plastic goo dripping down my charred kitchen counter that had been my Tater Twister,I thought.
At one point I bumped into the man who lived above us in the third apartment. He worked for the Housing Authority. He told me to stop by and he'd get my family emergency housing. I thanked him , and told him I'd be out. I wasn't crazy about the idea , but I badly needed a place to stay.
About an hour later ,still smelling of smoke I went out to the Housing Authority. He had me fill out some paperwork and then took me to the only available apartment they had left. ( He had taken the other one , since he was also out of a place to live..) As we walked up toward the place he told me that the area the apartment was in had a bad reputation , but that it had calmed down much lately. He walked up to the apartment door.
"You'll like this place."
He put the key in the lock and turned it. The door fell in off it's hinges and landed with a loud thud.
I stared blankly at the door on the floor for a second. "Now you will have that fixed won't you?"
That was the most surreal moment of the day.
Needless to say I did not get the apartment. I thanked the man for a second time that day and left.
I sent the rest of the day salvaging what I could ,and video taping the damage for a possible lawsuit against my firebug of a neighbor. ( It never happened. The fire Chief refused to say the leaf fire 20 feet and upwind of my backdoor could have caused the fire. " Maybe it was a bird dropping a cigarette butt?") Every wedding gift was gone or badly damaged. The Unity Candle Angie and I had lit at our wedding was blackened and melted badly.
" That's not a good sign", I said.
Red Cross gave Angie and I a check to go to Walmart and buy some new clothes. We went out and bought some essentials to get though the next few days. My sister said we could stay with her until we got back on our feet. ( Surely me staying at Rose's house is one of the signs of the apocalypse , I thought) reluctantly I agreed. That night when I showered the water turned black.
We stayed at Rose's for only 10 days before finding a new apartment.
With no Insurance we had to replace everything ourselves. I have never been without it since.
And in honor of my poor little Tater Twister I've never bought another one since.
Rest in peace little buddy.