That Time I laughed when I shouldn’t have

For the A to Z challenge Laura of History of a Woman (check her out!!) challenged me with the letter T for That Time I laughed when I shouldn’t have. I’m running a few days late in the challenge, but trying to catch up.

Although I have the feeling I did mostly stupidness in my life, especially when I was a little younger, and I am an expert in making a big fool out of myself, I don’t think I often laughed in situations I shouldn’t have. My friends and my sister can probably come up with tons of stories where I did, but the only situation that comes to my mind is my fire episode in Poland, many years ago.

My family and I were connected to a camping group. Every now and then we spent a weekend in the caravan. Once a year there was a youth trip where kids from all different European countries came together for a short week. I joined three times, to Krakow (Poland), Venice (Italy) and Edinburgh (Scotland).

The first year, I must have been 15 years old, I thought I was an expert in camping, Like all of us. Hundreds of small tents were scattered on a big field. Most days an excursion was planned. The most memorable, horrible was the trip to Auschwitz. I’ll never forget the one way railroad into the premises.

That Time I laughed when I shouldn’t have (or maybe even better: That Time I thought I could do something when I couldn’t) has to do what happened one afternoon around diner time. We used to prepare our own food, a simple soup or some hotdogs, on a camping gas stove.

Like I said, I thought I was the Queen of Camping, and when a gas cylinder needed to be changed, I just laughed and did it. It happened so fast. The gas ran out of the cylinder fast, someone lighting a cigarette or maybe another gas stove somewhere close by, a tent, fire, fire, fire!!! I accidentally set a tent on fire!!! I thank God with all my might that my two new friends Miranda & Shirley were not inside or I would have been a murderer. The tent, including everything inside, was gone in less than a second. Clothes, personal possessions everything was gone. They were lucky one of the girls had a beauty-case in which they stored their passports. Seriously, this is one of the worst moments of my life, especially the thought that the girls could have been inside. Changing a gas tank still gives me the creeps and I will never laugh again thinking I can just do that.