“You shouldn't be playing that game!” We three played a game Twisted Metal, a game my mom despised.  We played it every day for hours on end.  On this particular day, she had enough of it.  She forced us to go outside and play while she made lunch.  My brother, his friends, and I had a strong relationship when we were younger.  His friend Derek practically lived at our house after his mother passed away.  We would ride bikes, swim, walk through woods, and jump on the trampoline. 

After several weeks of Derek coming over every day, he brought his PlayStation over one day.  Derek begged my mom for fried chicken, “Please make fried chicken today, Sheryl!” He made this request almost every day because his mom always made it, and my mom always said she wouldn't make it, but finally she made us a deal.  She pointed her finger in our faces as she said, “I’ll make you a deal.  If you don't play that ridiculous game for the whole morning, I’ll make you the chicken.” Ecstatic, we all agreed and tried to keep our minds off of the game.  We set up a tent and acted like we were in the game.  We shot the Red Ryder BB gun at the tree hundreds of times until we ran out of BB’s.  We had a race down to a friend’s house to get more BB’s, and we continued to shoot BB’s.  Derek and my brother Joe came up with a plan: “When mom starts making the food, we will play PlayStation because she will be busy.”  My young mind agreed and thought it was a brilliant idea. 
It came time to sneak back inside and play the PlayStation.  We started playing the game on the lowest volume, slowly raising it so we could hear it but making sure she wouldn't hear it.  We probably  away with playing it for about fifteen minutes until we started noticing smoke from the kitchen while my mom was in her room.  We looked around the corner and our kitchen was ablaze in flames.  We began yelling “fire!” 

That's when my mom came in and yelled, “You shouldn't be playing that game! Remember our deal!”  She thought we were talking about fire in the game until she realized our house was filling with smoke.  Her face was covered face of terror as she saw her kitchen burning.  She picked me up and shoved Joe and Derek down as we crawled/ walked right past the flames. The heat from the fire kissed my face.  My mom scrambled for the phone and called 911. 

The fire department is only a couple blocks down from my house, so it didn't take them long to respond. The sirens blared as they came down the street as they flew past our house. “No! Come back!” my mom yelled as they drove past our house engulfed in flames.  She screamed, “Patrick’s stuff!” as my mom remembered all of my dads clothes, pictures, and piloting materials, He had passed away when I was younger. 

Eventually, the fire department showed up and put out the fire.  For a few months we lived with my grandparents while the house and kitchen were redone.  My mom loves her new kitchen but misses the old times, and we lost a video camera tape with footage of my dad but not his other keepsakes.