"A tow truck? That's a hundred bucks, Dalton. I can replace the van for $75." - Red Green, The Red Green Show

 

WonderTruck: Seventeen thousand pounds of steel. Also, it sleeps one.

Since Alia S. Wilder has moved in, we’ve found that there’s more laughter around the house, much of it at her expense. Alia has . . . adventures.

It’s not really her fault, but Alia just has adventure follow her around. Like the time she set our house on fire. (This was in a house we owned before Life in Alaska/Wilder By Far started.)

Alia was in the basement, in the middle of summer. She had found a lighter (not really sure where that came from, perhaps a late night showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show® at our house, or maybe I was just cooking itsy bits of steak over it) and had a piece of paper towel. For some reason, she was under the misapprehension that the paper towels we purchased were made out of some sort of flame retardant asbestos-like material, and wouldn’t flash into a ball of flame at the slightest spark. No. Those cost money.

The predictable happened. The flame from the lighter hit the paper towel, the paper towel burst into flames. Thinking quickly, Alia threw the paper towel into the fireplace, where burning stuff is supposed to be. Had all been normal, this would have been a good idea. This being the Wilder house, she could have picked no worse thing to do.

I like to make fires and heat our house with them. This makes us warm. I like being warm, and wood fires are one of the cheapest ways to heat a house. Dryer lint is a great fire starter. During the summer, after cleaning that itty bitty screen that traps lint, I dumped the lint into the fireplace. The first fire of the year starts pretty easily.

So, Alia throws the furiously burning paper into the fireplace, where a great, roaring blaze of flaming lint immediately springs up. Did I mention the damper was closed, so none of the smoke could make it up the chimney?

Thinking quickly, Alia pulled her T-shirt off and began to beat at the blaze with the T-shirt, smoke and flames from the dryer lint jumping up around her. The air pressure from the T-shirt made the flaming dryer lint airborne, like little tiny parachuting burning poodles. Fortunately, the carpet stopped the fall of the burning dryer lint. Did I mention that Alia learned that carpet burned that day?

One of Alia’s more recent adventures involved driving her car down the road when the battery exploded. The boiling acid ate all the hoses and the engine. I can’t figure out a way to blame her for this, but I’m still looking.

Now living Houston with us, she’s earned a bit of independence, and lives in the little cage in the basement room above the garage. She can even lock her door.

So, one night last week, at about 3:00AM Alia decided to change the cat litter that she keeps for the vermin kittens she keeps in her room.

She emptied the litter, and went back upstairs. To the locked room. To the locked room where her keys were. Inside.

Alia tried to get inside, but all inside (with the possible exception of Pugsley, who knows what a 2-year-old does at 3:00AM?) were sleeping, and she didn’t want to raise too much of a ruckus, clad in a black hooded sweatshirt as she was. Alia attempted to figure out a way either into her room or back into our house, but had no real luck. She finally gave up as the mosquitoes drained enough blood for her to feel faint, and then curled up in WonderTruck to spend the night (fortunately it has a bench seat).

For some reason, Alia chose not to tell me the story until today. Why? I can’t even guess. Perhaps she thought I was going to tease her about it mercilessly.

Nah. I’ll just share her adventure with the Internet.