Burning House

Eeesh, this is hard. Well first off, I think I’d better save only items that are in my bedroom, as the fire could well be raging outside the door couldn’t it? *shudders at the memory of Back Draft*

And I’m assuming that I’m in my bedroom and that this is a dead of night fire correct? One presumes that a fire during in the day would come as less of a shocker and that you might have time to try and extinguish it yourself with a damp towel, or as a last resort, with the help of the brigade (Fire Brigade, not Girls’ Brigade – they’d probably be responsible for setting the fire in the first place). Tut.

Although, saving just items in my bedroom limits me to only saving things like my stuffed Koala pal (awww), my alarm clock (no way), my bed (but that’s so impractical).

No, I think for the sake of a more interesting list of items, this fire must be considered purely hypothetical. Doors can be opened freely without disastrously completing the fire triangle and I’m not solely responsible for manoeuvring the items from the house to the street ok? To rephrase then: If the Girls’ Brigade knocked on the door with some matches, what would I make sure to get the hell out of there before the whole place went up? Let me see...

My memory box: The first thing I’d save is a box of items really (which is cheating – but this is my fictional fire so who’s going to stop me?!) and it contains things like all my teenage angsty journals, photographs of assorted people who I’ve encountered along the way, letters, notes passed under desks in lessons and other miscellaneous things like shells, badges, corks. If I ever get amnesia, you can just show me this box and it’ll all flood back. If only Madge had a box like this for poor Harold it might not have all been so painful to watch.

My wedding dress: £1200 of Spanish lace and sparkling splendiferousness. They said I could have it ‘shortened’ and made into a ‘cocktail dress’ for afterwards  - ‘Oh and if you bust your wedding ring open with garden pliers, you can use it to pick locks if you ever forget your keys!’ How dare they?! This dress symbolises the happy day when I made an honest man out of Mr Alice and also it was the most beautiful piece of clothing I ever had next to my skin. Except for the time I broke into a display cabinet in the V&A and got into those gold hotpants. No that didn’t happen. What?

Tin Foil: Now you’ve got to be practical in a fire. You don’t want to be picking through the charred remains of your house the next day, wearing your wedding dress and sobbing into your memory box like Miss Haversham. You’ve got to think like a survivor and there’s not much you can’t do with a good roll of tin foil. Of course there’s the obvious like preserve your left overs, but there are numerous other applications that would be of great use in a post fire scenario. You can wrap yourself in it to keep warm, or to look professional if you’ve just finished a long run such as a marathon. You can cut out small circles of it to use as currency. You can make a sun reflector and attract attention from passing ships or you can screw lots of it up around a rock and make a football. The list is endless.

Peanut Butter: For some reason, this was the first thing I thought of and I’m not too sure why. But one should always trust one’s instincts so rather than dismissing it, I am faithfully adding it to the list – whilst also being a little concerned that in a real fire, this would literally be what I would have grabbed for. Hmmm. *Takes jar from shelf and places into handbag*

My goldfish (plural): Now, I’m assuming Mr Alice is getting out on his own obviously so that’s why I’m reaching for the rest of the family here.  And I suppose this means I’m saving the goldfish bowl too, as stuffing poor Beyonce and Jay Z into my pockets would probably traumatise all three of us more than the fire ever could. Two of us wouldn’t survive that horror, and it could easily be any combination.
And that's it. Nothing else needed. If you want see what other people would save, have a little look at this site: www.theburninghouse.com