The Arsonist’s Cookbook

CW: Strong language, alcohol use, and accidental property destruction through fire.

Look, I didn’t mean to burn down the shed, okay? I meant to make a hot dog. One hot dog. Maybe two, if I was feeling ambitious. But there’s a world of difference between dinner and arson, and apparently, I skipped that chapter of Homeownership for Dummies.

So, yeah. This all started because I got ghosted. Again.

You ever been ghosted three times in a month by the same woman? It’s like she’s determined to teach you a lesson about hope. We’d been chatting for weeks. Made plans for drinks. I even wore real cologne, not the body spray I usually blast on like I’m fifteen. She said she was “on her way” and then—nothing. Black hole.

I sat at the bar nursing whiskey while the bartender gave me pity refills and tried not to look me in the eye. My phone stayed dark, except for a “Still good for tonight?” text I sent an hour ago. Unanswered.

So there I was, checking my phone every thirty seconds like an addict, getting ghosted in real time, and realizing I’d officially hit the trifecta for the month. The bartender finally asked if I was closing out. I said yes, trying to sound dignified, but I think I slurred it.

I walked home. Two blocks. Don’t give me that look—I wasn’t that much of an asshole. I knew I couldn’t drive. I may be dumb, but I’m not that dumb. Besides, the fresh air felt like it was trying to fight me. I told it to fuck off and stumbled anyway.

I wasn’t going to let it ruin my whole night. No. I deserved something nice. Something primal. So I decided I’d grill myself a hot dog. Because nothing says “you’re a stable adult” like drunk solo grilling at 11 PM.

I should mention I’m a first-time homeowner. Got the keys two months ago. Everyone congratulated me like I’d won life. “You’re a grown-up now!” they said. “You’ll love it!”

No one told me the lawn would die if I looked at it wrong. Or that the water heater would groan like a dying walrus. Or that I’d burn down a neighbor’s property within sixty days of moving in.

But I digress.

I stumbled onto my sad little patch of lawn, clutching the half-empty whiskey bottle. The grass was half-dead. There was an old lawn gnome with one eye missing glaring at me in judgment. I gave him the finger. The grill was a Facebook Marketplace special: $5 and “lightly used,” which in practice meant rusted to shit and missing one wheel. But I loved it. It made me feel like a man. I’d used it once before—badly. I dragged it out from the side of the house, nearly tipping over and flattening my neighbor’s cat, who shrieked and vanished into the night.

I found the charcoal bag and managed to dump it everywhere except inside the grill. My dog—Archie, an old mutt with cataracts—just sat on the porch watching, tail thumping once in disapproval.

“Don’t judge me,” I told him. He yawned.

Then came the lighter fluid. Oh, lighter fluid. My beautiful, terrible enabler. The label said “Use sparingly.” Which, to be fair, is subjective.

I squeezed that thing like a frat bro making jungle juice. The coals were basically drowning.

“That’ll do,” I muttered, wiping my hands on my jeans.

I don’t even know if I lit it or it lit itself.

There was a whoosh so big it knocked me back on my ass. The flames shot up like I’d summoned Satan himself for dinner.

“Holy shit!” I screamed, crawling backward. Archie barked once, then trotted back inside like “You’re on your own, asshole.”

I tried to pat it down with a broom. The broom caught fire.

I waved the flaming broom around like an idiot, which only spread sparks onto the fence.

The fence was dry. Very dry. Because I hadn’t gotten around to sealing it. Or caring about it.

Within seconds, my fence was an inferno.

“No no no no no—”

I dropped the broom and ran for the hose.

Fun fact: My hose was older than I was. It was kinked in three places, leaking in five.

I managed to get a trickle going. A literal trickle. I aimed it at the fence. The fire laughed at me.

And then—the neighbor’s shed.

Their beautiful, beloved, apparently highly flammable shed.

One ember floated over like it was in a goddamn Disney movie, and poof.

Flames. Big ones.

I think I actually screamed. Like full-on horror movie final girl screaming.

I called 911. Drunk dialing your ex is humiliating. Drunk dialing 911 because you set a neighbor’s shed ablaze is a special kind of shame.

“What’s your emergency?”

“Uh. Fire.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere?”

The operator was calm. Too calm. It made me feel even dumber.

The sirens were there in minutes. But by then, half the neighborhood was out on their lawns, watching my yard blaze like a sacrificial altar to the gods of stupidity.

The firefighters didn’t even say anything at first. Just started spraying while giving me side-eye.

My neighbor was there too. Stan. Fifty-something. Balding. Looked like he wanted to murder me himself.

“My SHED!” he bellowed.

“I’m so sorry!” I yelled back.

“How did this even happen?”

“I…wanted a hot dog?”

Not my proudest moment.

Then the cop showed up. Young guy. Too clean-cut. Looked at me, looked at the fire, looked at the whiskey bottle in my hand.

“Sir, have you been drinking tonight?”

“Define ‘drinking.’”

“Open container. Public intoxication. Reckless burning. Possibly arson.”

“Arson’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”

He didn’t think.

They cuffed me.

“Archie! Be good!” I yelled at my dog, who had come back outside to watch me get arrested. He just sat there wagging his tail. Traitor.

So yeah. Turns out “accidentally burning down your neighbor’s shed” is still very much illegal. Even if you’re really, really sorry about it.

The mugshot was a treat. I looked like a raccoon who’d been hosed down and then forced to take a school picture. Hair everywhere. Smoke stains on my shirt. Red, bleary eyes. I didn’t even realize I was still wearing my “Kiss the Cook” apron until they took it off for the photo.

Bail wasn’t too bad, but explaining it to my mother? Nightmare fuel.

“You what?”

“It was an accident.”

“You’re thirty.”

“Age is just a number when it comes to dumbassery.”

And then there was Stan. My neighbor.

He sent me an invoice. Like, a real, itemized invoice.

“For the shed,” he’d scrawled at the top, as if there was any ambiguity about what I’d burned.

Materials: $2,400. Labor: $800. Emotional damages: $500.

He even added tax.

I offered to help rebuild it. He suggested I rebuild my own brain first. Fair enough.

Insurance? Oh, they laughed. Not to my face, of course, but I could hear it in the hold music. Turns out “gross negligence while intoxicated” is not a covered peril. Who knew?

Also, Nextdoor was a minefield.

THREAD TITLE: Local Moron Sets Shed Ablaze

Subthread: How Drunk Was He?

134 comments.

My favorite was:

“Honestly I’m surprised he even owns property.”

Thanks, Karen.

The city issued me a citation for reckless burning. Misdemeanor, but with a fun little court date.

The lawyer I scraped together with my remaining dignity suggested I show “deep remorse.”

Mission accomplished. I was so full of remorse I practically had to unbutton my pants to fit it all in.

The judge suggested I attend AA. Suggested in that “go, or see you again soon” tone.

So now I sit in folding chairs with other sad sacks, telling my story while they try not to laugh.

“And what brought you here?”

“I burned down a shed trying to make a hot dog.”

Even the guy who hijacked a forklift to get to Taco Bell at 3am thinks I’m an idiot.

Look. I’m not saying I’m proud of it. I’m not.

It was one moment of self-pity, a bottle of cheap whiskey, and enough lighter fluid to solve world hunger if it were edible.

I never even got the hot dog. That’s the worst part.

Well. Okay. The worst part was Stan’s face as he watched his shed become a Viking funeral.

Or maybe the worst part was seeing Archie watch me get cuffed like “again, huh?”

Or the AA meeting. Or the Nextdoor thread.

There are a lot of contenders, honestly.

But the truth is, I deserved it. Not the ghosting—no one deserves that. But the humiliation? The community service? The reputation as That Guy on the Block? Sure.

It was a wake-up call.

I haven’t had a drink in forty-two days. I still crave it, especially when I think about texting that girl again. But for now, I’m dry.

Stan’s rebuilding his shed. He doesn’t talk to me. Which is fair.

I sent him brownies as an apology. Burned those, too.

And as for grilling?

Yeah. I’m done with that.

At least until I’m sober enough to remember which end of the match goes where.

But hey—lessons learned, right?

Look, I didn’t mean to burn down the shed.

But I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make sure I don’t light anything else on fire.

Figuratively.

Mostly.