Unplugged & Unmedicated

The Amazing Exploding House
Written by David M. Muench



It began as a normal (what would pass as "normal" in our household) but stormy midafternoon. Some relatives were staying with us (Aunt Heather, cousin’s Shawn and Shannon, and "Monkey;" their odd-looking black terrier with a severe underbite); as was my sister, her husband and their baby, my brother, my mother, myself and a brutally aberrant Chihuahua who always wanted to maim me named "Chico."

I was engaged in my usual habit of drawing at the kitchen table while my aunt prepared a chicken for dinner. I have no recollection of what everybody else was doing at that time, but whatever it was pales in comparison of what everybody did after the "episode."

The storms were getting more severe and lightning was peppering the sky around us. Suddenly a bolt of lightning crashed into the back of our house, throwing the busy home into a preternatural void of sound and light. I believe it was Mick, my sister's husband, who first noticed the sparks flying from the back of our home. It was then that Mick came to the profound yet funny-as-hell conclusion that "our house was going to blow up!”

After hearing Mick's sage words and a few choice expletives, the entire household went to "DEFCON-5." You know, ballistic. So we did our best pantomime of running around like chickens with their heads cut off until Mick decided to delegate himself as the "Official Head Counter." One of the duties of this prestigious title was to stand in the hallway and launch family members out the front door. Well, actually due to the particular position the "Head Counter" was in he was not able to aim the human projectiles through the door, but I suppose being thrown against the doorjamb was close enough. It has the word "door" in it and everything. My aunt placed herself in the role of "Assistant Official Head Counter" and assumed her station on the porch, throwing the now-bruised family members off of the porch and into the stormy afternoon.

Now, let me reiterate that I don't always know why I do certain things in any given situation. This day proved to be no exception. For some reason I decided to skip my appointment with "Mick the Head Counter" and sprinted down the hallway into my mother's room. After a brief moment I realized that unless I wished to utilize one of the three windows in that general area, I wasn't going to go anywhere. I then had to turn around and zip down the hallway to get outside. With cat-like agility (which is ironic because I'm allergic to cats) I managed to escape the "Meet Mr. Doorjamb" ride and fled out the front door.

Once outside, it seemed that everybody had his or her own unique agenda. My cousin Shannon bolted up the street screaming at the top of her lungs, "Our house is going to blow up!" Repeatedly. It was reported that she had in fact broken the land speed record of a panicked human, and nearby neighbors admitted hearing a loud "boom" after Shannon had flashed by them. I could almost see tendrils of smoke on the blurs of her shoes. When Shannon later returned from her cross-country trip we learned her completely reasonable explanation of why she took flight from the house and landed a mile away at a local convenience store. She believed our combustible house would create a "domino effect" and cause all of the houses next to us to explode. Sure, that makes perfect sense.

Shawn, my other cousin, bounded (he's a big boy. "Bounded" seems appropriate) in the opposite direction and sought shelter at a neighbor's home. I ran directly across the street and planted myself on the sidewalk; heart slamming in my chest and anticipating the imminent earth-shattering explosion of our home. My brother also ran across the street, but he did something totally out of character for our bizarre family: He went into a neighbor's home and called the fire department. I swear he must have been adopted.

My aunt attempted to re-enter the "Amazing Exploding House" to save the two dogs. She was wary of the doorknob, barely touching it and drawing her hand back quickly; afraid the doorknob was going to be electrified. After finally retrieving the mongrels my aunt then suggested that they get into the car away from the house, just in case the house would cause the car to blow up. Seeing my aunt with the two dogs, my sister and her hubby get into the safety of the car, I finally unglued myself from the sidewalk and I too ran to the deceptive safety of the car as well. And thus began the "Driveway Polka.”

Mick had begun backing the car out of the driveway then was told to stop. We might get in the fire truck's way, so Mick pulled forward again. Whoops, that darned exploding house again, better back that puppy up. This continued for a few times; backing up and pulling forward. I was hysterical and saying let's get the heck outta here, then I got a light smack on the face to be quiet. Utter chaos.

When the fire department finally arrived, there were amused onlookers aplenty. I think some were actually sitting in lawn chairs and eating popcorn. We had a reputation of being entertaining, and granted, seeing the firefighters struggling over our relative's furniture cluttered in our garage was kind of amusing.

In retrospect.

Shannon had returned by then, gasping for breath and probably feeling quite dumb. After an inspection of the "Exploding House," the firemen had noted that the sparks were caused by the electrical box on our house. No immediate danger. No foundation-rocking explosions. We were finally ushered back into the house; shortly thereafter my aunt began washing the potting soil from the chicken after a plant somehow fell from the kitchen windowsill and covered the chicken with dirt. This elicited a few raised eyebrows from firemen passing through the kitchen.

My sister attributed how everybody responded to this slapstick crisis to the stress of having too many people in a house, and of other situations that were happening at that time. Honestly, I think that sounds more like an excuse, as we were subjected to other unusual events later on in life. And even though my mother was fortunate enough to be at work during this twenty-minute ordeal, she was not excluded on other family adventures.

We have grown emotionally since then, shedding our manic garbs for more intelligent and appropriate emergency responses; but we always find a seemingly sempiternal supply of humor from our past as we relive it again and again.