Learning to make fire

        I came home to my house in ruins.  Well, not necessarily ruins, that would mean that I had in fact been gone for years instead of mere minutes as I ran to the green grocer to buy a carton of milk.  
        Our house looked more like we had been robbed.
        I stepped through the mess cautiously, trying to avoid the shards of my favorite vase and the muddy puddles with broken flowers scattered across the floor as if a small child had been playing the flower girl at a wedding.  The dog sat in the middle of what used to be our entertainment center- which now looked as if our TV had turned out to be a cleverly disguised bomb that had only now gone off- chewing on the edge of the TV stand.  He looked up at me as if he were proud, wagging his tail vigorously and barking. I despaired of ever buying a TV again, seeing the cracked 48 inch flat screen amidst the chaos of the living room.  I looked around and saw that things weren't quite right with the "I've just been robbed scene".  For instance, we still had our (cracked) TV and sound system, along with our new Mac computer and all of the paintings and books, CDs and DVDs were still in place, albeit a tad askew. The only thing missing was… our couch.
         I collapsed on our hashed floor in disbelief.  Who trashed someone else's house, only to steal an old, worn out couch?  The dog whined and scooted himself over to my prone figure.  I thought at first he meant to comfort me, but he was only interested in the now dented carton of milk that was steadily leaking milk onto the carpet, mixing with the mud to make the brown mess even larger.  The dog licked the milk from the ground and settled in comfortably to much contentedly on the carton.
         I heard loud shrieks and laughter from the backyard and I roused myself to investigate.  I walked out to the back, observing that the kitchen and hall were also in ruins, the table and fridge jostled out of place,  scratches on the floor and dents in the wall, until I came to the back door, which had been unsuccessfully taken off its hinges and lugged aside.  I did a double take as I saw my ten year old, Joshua, along with my 6 year old, Rebecca, sitting around the remains of the family couch, with dirt and soot on their faces and a few burns on their hands besides.  In Joshua's hands was my husband's lighter and a large, proud grin on his face.  I was afraid to look directly at the couch, but I did.  It was charred in quite a few places, and smoke still curled up from the legs, and had nasty holes in it from where the acrylic fabric had melted instead of burning.
         Then Rebecca exclaimed proudly, "We're learning how to make FIRE, mommy!"