Truer Story: OH MY GOD, the Shrinky Dinks are on fire.

Many moons ago my sister, mom, and I would take trips up to Tupelo, Mississippi to see my Aunt, Uncle, and cousin.  It was the highlight of each year (next to Disney trips, of course ;).  During our stay, my older sister, cousin, and I would come up with as many concoctions as we could to entertain ourselves.  Otherwise we would make up chants like “Boring room..” while beating on bongo drums in the hallway of their house.  There was the strip show (we were reaallly little), the dance performances,  and the many multi-talent recitals we put on for our parents.  One particular summer, sometime near the 4th of July, we decided that a patriotic performance was in order.  For part of our decorations we had a pack of Shrinky Dinks that came with a “do-it-yourself” set where you could draw your own Shrinky Dink.  That idea was very exciting to us.  We decided to make American flags with our DIY set…naturally.  Perhaps because we were a little to young to know better, we drew our Shrinky Dinks the exact size we wanted them to be…not really considering the shrinkage factor.  I am actually surprised my older sister did not know any better at that point.  We placed them into the toaster oven and set the timer…10 minutes.  We we came back to check on them, those little flags had burned to a crisp and one of them was already in flames.  My genius cousin decided it needed to be removed immediately with a paper NAPKIN.  Unhuh, yup, we started a smallish fire in her kitchen.  All I ever knew about fires were that you were supposed to immediately run out of the house.  Well, that is exactly what I did all while screaming “fire!!!” and running onto the front lawn.  What I did not realize is that the fire was small enough to contain very easily.  Had I been in charge, the house would have burned down.  Thank goodness that was not the case.  My cousin and sister got really upset about the tiny crisp black flags and the fire, while I had no clue what to think because everything I had ever learned about fires had just been flipped upside down.