The Iron Incident

Alternate Titles:
"Striking While the Iron is Hot"
"Ironman Was Here"

Two lessons learned:
1) Irons can be dangerous (damage, injuries or fires)
2) If you wreck something, you should try to make it right

Scott got to spend the morning playing with cousin H's house two weeks ago. The two boys noticed the iron was out and decided to plug it in and conduct some experiments. They pressed cousin A's toy football and essentially melted it. By some miracle, neither of them got burned before they finally abandoned their experiments and the iron.

Unfortunately, they abandoned it sitting hot-side-down on the carpet, which burned a distinct iron shape in carpet at the base of the basement stairs. So the total casualty list included the football, the carpet, and the iron itself.



In addition to a lengthy discourse on the subject of safety and the destruction of private property, R suggested Scott give aunt J some money from his savings -- he had accumulated $22.50 in his wristband-bank for his Buzz Lightyear purchase fund (he recycles bottles and does chores to earn money). He immediately caveated that we should reimburse him for whatever amount he gives to Jenny. At first I thought this was a hilarious reaction from Scott, but then I realized this is very similar to the recent conversation we'd had about about buying H's birthday present. We had suggested we buy H a gift and Scott had offered to help pay for it with his money. We told him that his money was his Buzz Lightyear fund, so he should just save it and we would pay for H's present. I can see how our later suggestion would seem to run contrary to the H-present argument.

Scott helped make a card to apologize. He coloured in the pictures, wrote in his name and inserted a dollar coin in the envelope. Then he gave it to J at the Sunday family dinner. He also gave A a new toy football (he had come home with four new ones when we went to the Stampeders game that week).

Will he remember these lessons? Well, a few weeks after the incident, we were reading a book about firefighters and Scott told me that irons can start fires. If he remembers the lectures on safety so well, the rest of the experience must be quite vivid in his mind.