I went up to Coopers' Lake for Pennsic and had, for the first time, a pavilion of my very own. And having a beautiful period pavilion meant that I needed beautiful Stuff to go in it, so I furnished it with oriental rugs, and carved and painted side tables, and chairs and cushions and tapestries, and hanging candelabras, and clever candle lamps and oil lights, and on the wall above the side table I hung my husband's handmade sword in its hand-carved scabbard. And in the back corner, I made my bed on the ground, because a proper bed was the one thing I hadn't had time to round up. So the first night after we pitched the pavilion, my lord husband stayed with me and all was well. But the second night, he went home, and left me, my 6 year old daughter, and one friend to occupy our campsite, because it was setup week when only the truly lucky get to be at War. And that night I put my daughter to bed in her miniature Viking tent, which lay next to my pavilion, and then later after the fire died down I put myself to bed as well.
As I got ready to go to bed, I remembered it was inevitable that every night that week I would wake up at 4 a.m. and have to go to the privy in the pitch black dark. And since the pavilion was not yet completely organized inside -- there were boxes and bags still scattered across the floor -- I thought I should leave a night candle lit, so I wouldn't fall down and break myself or worse yet run into an upright and bring the pavilion down on my head.
I had in my possession a number of candle lanterns, including one I'd bought just a few weeks earlier in a thrift shop. It had a wooden frame, with a little door that opened to admit the candle, and plexiglass windows on each side. It used a little votive candle. I'd been a little worried about the plexiglass, but I'd test-lit it earlier and verified that the plastic didn't get even a little bit warm, so it seemed okay. I put my little votive candle in the lantern, lit it, set it down on a decorative brass tray, and went to bed.
Sure enough, I woke somewhere between 4 and 5, in that early morning hour when the grass is cold and soaking wet, even the heartiest partiers have gone to bed, and the stars are just beginning to fade. And I grabbed my robe and went out to the privy, leaving the door flap open just a little behind me. The candle was burning very low.
I came back, tied the door shut behind me, hung up my robe and just as I made it to bed realized that I wasn't alone in the tent. Something was in there with me, flying semi-hysterical loops around the inside of the tent. At first I thought it was a bird, but after a few second I realized it was a bat. I'd opened the door at Bat Go Home time and some bat had taken my light-colored tent and dark-colored door for a hillside and a cave.
So I thought to myself, I'll just lie here and go back to sleep, and in a while it will get light inside the pavilion and the bat will settle somewhere, and then I can roust it out when I can see. But the bat was flying a loop that went from high along the ridgepole to low along the floor, doing that ground-skimming thing they do so well, and everytime it went by overhead squeaking in distress it was so close I could feel the wind from its leathery little wings. So finally I got up and went back to the door and opened it (sure the whole time that, with my huge mane of loose hair, I was going to be the first person in history to really truly have a bat fly into her hair). And I took the flap in one hand and my hair in the other and said okay, now, Bat, prove to me that mammals really are smarter than birds! and sure enough they are, because the bat flew right out the door. And I went back to sleep.
The next night, I lit my night candle and laid down to sleep, and sure enough, I woke somewhere between 4 and 5, in that early morning hour when the grass is cold and soaking wet, even the heartiest partiers have gone to bed, and the stars are just beginning to fade. And I grabbed my robe and went out to the privy, but this time I closed the doorflap and tied it shut behind me. And when I came back to the pavilion, the candle was burning very low. I thought to myself, I could blow that out, because it's just starting to get light. And then I thought no, if you do that, you'll have to scrape wax out of the lantern, whereas if you let it burn down, it'll be clean for tomorrow night. And I hung up my robe, laid down and went back to sleep.
About 7 a.m., I was lying in bed warm and snuggly, and the parts of my brain were arguing. One part was thinking how nice it was to be asleep, and not to have to get up, and the other part, the little reptilian hindbrain that never sleeps, was screaming "IF YOU DON'T WAKE UP YOU'RE GONNA DIE!!!" and so I sat bolt upright in bed and there, on the side table, up against the wall of the pavilion, was a pillar of flame two feet tall.
I leapt out of bed, reached through the flame, grabbed my husband's sword and scabbard and threw it across the tent, and then grabbed the metal tray the whole flaming mess was sitting on and set it down on the floor where it could burn straight up and not reach anything. Then I untied the doorflap, grasped the tray, crouched down and -- no other word for it -- waddled backwards out of the door, holding the tray low in front of me as far from the top of the door opening as possible. Threw it down on the wet grass away from the tent and said "Burn there! you son of a bitch!!" Grabbed the fire extinguisher, pulled the pin, pulled the trigger, and ... nothing happened. So I dropped the extinguisher, grabbed a bucket, filled it from the ice chest, threw the water on the flaming mess, and as the flames died
realized that I was standing in the middle of camp stark naked.
And that is how I became the founding and thus far only member of the Pennsic Naked Fire Fighting Squad.