fire extinguisher It was a late summer evening and the sun was just beginning to set. I think I was around 14 years old. Benny and I were hanging out with a few friends at the park right by his house. We were doing the same stuff we had been doing every day that week so we were all having trouble staying entertained. Benny pulled me aside from our other friends and made a suggestion that we get drunk. His neighbor who was a few grades above us had left over vodka from the night before that he said he would sell to us. We hid from our other friends and went to the bush where his neighbor said the booze was hidden. Sure enough there was a Gatorade bottle filled to the brim. Neither of had drank very many times before so we figured this would be enough to get our young bodies drunk to satisfaction. We told our friends we had to do something in the field for a minute, trying to be sneaky. They knew we were up to something though they just had no idea what. We didn’t really want them to know we were drinking because none of them had drank before and we didn’t want them to feel uncomfortable. We went into the field and hid behind a dirt hill that was left over from the hockey rink they had there in the winter or something of the sort. I took the first pull. I chugged it all the way down to the half way mark in one motion and did so without breathing. I didn’t want to taste the stuff. Benny thought I had it right drinking it all in one gulp and decided to do the same. When we were both finished we sat there for a minute. Neither of us felt anything. We stood up and still nothing. We decided to walk back to our friends, a little disappointed. Once we got to the end of the park we continued our conversation we were having with our friends. After talking for a while, maybe 2 or 3 minutes, Benny and i wobbled and stumbled at the exact time, looking at each other and laughing. The alcohol hit us a bit later than we expected. After the blow to the head we got our friends to go to the playground and play on the swings hiving a jolly drunk time. The others immediately realized we were intoxicated but to our surprise could care less. I got a phone call about ten minutes later from our friend Raffi, inviting me and Benny to come over to his house for a sleep over. He already had a couple people over there. He didn’t know we were drunk. Benny and I accepted and parted with the friends we were with and began to walk over. Raffi lived pretty close to the park, about 6 or 7 blocks. I told Benny we had to act sober because Raffi and the others didnt know we were drunk and he might not want us over if he found out we had been drinking. Benny agreed. We both drunkenly and happily wandered our way over to our friends house. Raffi was a large, heavy set, full blooded Italian. Like the kind of Italian who’s family ate pasta for dinner every night and spoke to each other in their native toung. It was always awesome hearing him yell passionately with his mother back and fourth in a different language from the bottom of the stairs to the top of the stairs. Raffis room was in the basement. When we got to his house we cheered and greeted our friends. They immediately could tell that we had been drinking. Raffi was a little upset but let us stay. We all sat on the couch and took turns playing Raffis xbox on his big screen tv. I bit of time had passed and I got bored of playing video games so I went into the laundry room and drunk dialed some girls. They were amused with my drunkenness so I stayed on the phone with them for a while. I think I may have sang them a song or two. While I was talking with them I was admiring the bright red fire extinguisher that sat in the room on the shelf. I picked it up and felt how heavy it was. I remember thinking about how in my entire 14 years of #life I had never seen one go off. I looked at it closely to see how it worked. There was a pin stuck in the handle to keep it from going off by accident. I pulled the pin out and played with it for a minute by myself. Then, while still on the phone with the girls, I walked from the laundry room back to raffis room and held the extinguisher cocked and ready to go in the door way. Everyone in the room looked at me and didnt say anything. Someone started to say my name as I pulled on the handle. I giant puff of white powder dispersed throughout the room. I was as shocked as the rest of the room at how low my impulse control was. Everyone began to choke on the air. When the cloud finally hit me I felt a burning sensation in my eyes and throat. Everyone held their breath and ran out of the house. Raffi grabbed the extinguisher with him as it was still shooting out the toxic substance. We got outside and finally could breathe the air again. Everyone started a mixture of laughing and yelling at me. I apologize and try to explain that I really wanted to know what would happen when I set it off. Most of our friends were amused except for Raffi and a kid that had asthma. Raffi went back down in the basement and opened all of the windows and we all waited outside for the room to air out while the kid with asthma called his mom to come bring him home.