Might as Well Laugh About It Now by Marie Osmond, Marcia Wilkie Read Free Book Online Page B

everything in it was totally gone in less than an hour. I was driving with Patty and my two youngest daughters to deliver a speech at a girls’ camp in the Angeles National Forest when I got the call.
    It all happened quickly, I was told. Though the cause was never really verified, it was assumed that a very young curious child with a fireplace lighter had set a broom ablaze in the garage. Frightened of getting into trouble, the child dropped the broom and came into the house.
    When the fire ignited the gas tanks of the two WaveRunners stored in the garage, the flames spread rapidly up the back wall. Neighbors who saw the billowing smoke ran into the house, first rescuing the children and also waking up their father, Brian, who was napping upstairs. My son Michael called 9-1-1 as my neighbors joined forces to carry whatever belongings could be saved out to the lawn.
    Though smoke damaged every room of the house as it was suctioned through the air-conditioning vents, my quick-thinking neighbors did manage to save most of my favorite framed family photos, artwork, and antique furniture. What was impossible to save was my office and almost every single thing in it, as the fire burned through the roof of the garage and reduced the walls of my room to charred embers.
    Patty was driving along the highway, looking over at me in shock every now and then as I described the damage to her after the phone call.
    “What do you want to do?” she asked. “Should we cancel this talk today? Should we drive to the airport? Do you want me to keep the kids? Go with you? Where will you stay? Who’s going to help you?” Patty’s a person who takes action immediately once a plan is in place. Who doesn’t need a friend to help you think in a crisis?
    This time, however, my thinking was very clear. My babies were all safe, which was all I really needed to know, and I had a commitment to keep. I did my talk to a group of about one hundred young women.
    Looking out at their teenaged faces and their attempts to be so mature and independent in attitude and fashion reminded me of my own trial run at being a grown-up, and how uncool it really was. In fact, it was blazing hot!
    It was the first time my parents were able to take a vacation together without any children along. My brother Jay had surprised them with a gift of a cruise and a guided tour of the Holy Land. We had convinced them to enjoy some vacation time, as Donny and I were in our late teens and Jimmy was always reliable, right from the start. He had already toured Japan and was being offered a television show there at the career-savvy age of fourteen. If the three of us could handle hosting national television shows, we figured we could certainly handle running a house on our own for ten days.
    One of my girlfriends had come over to stay with us while my parents were out of town, and one day we decided to fry some hamburgers. As teenagers who were terrified of fat, or anything edible that wasn’t cooked to death, we decided to cook our burgers well, well, well done. Think Cajun before it was cool! I am sure we imagined that high heat would burn off the calories before we even ate them!
    As we stood there talking, the top of the pan burst into flames from the overheated grease that had pooled around the burgers.
    My girlfriend screamed and Donny came running in from the living room.
    He jumped into action as soon as he saw the leaping flames.
    “I’ve got it!” he yelled, grabbing a dish towel and wrapping it around the handle of the pan. He jerked the pan up off the stove and started toward the sink.
    “Wait!” I shouted, afraid of what he was about to do. But it was too late. As he hurried across the room, grease slopped over the edge of the pan, sending flames to the floor. This probably wouldn’t have been a big crisis, but it was the seventies, when people carpeted their kitchens. (Ugly. No two ways around it.) The carpet began to burn.
    As I stood there in disbelief, Donny