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I got home Tuesday night from Hartford and walked in around 7. Emily walked up and asked if we could make s'mores, you know, the delicious campfire treats made of graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows in a delightful sandwich. Yum yum. Eat it up.

So I said heck yeah, we can make those. Why not? Let's get this party started.

Now, the first approach is to use a campfire. Which we didn't have and I was not making one, it was about 100 degrees out. The second approach would be to light up the grill and use the flame from the good old Weber, which, I was not going to do either. So we went with option three, the white trash s'more approach, and use the flame on our gas stove to toast the marshmallows. Dangerous, irresponsible, yet effective.

Being somewhat aware of my responsibilities as a parent, I wanted to set a little bit of an example and I did not allow Emily near the flame. She held the fire extinguisher.

So I set out on getting three sandwiches done. I took a fork from the drawer, skewered the marshmallow, and got to burning the hell out of it on the open flame from the stove. I then repeated the process two more times, letting Emily make the actual treats but never putting her in harms way.

When I was done with the third, I noticed a glob of melted marshmallow on the end of the fork. It was calling me. It said "eat it, eat it, no one is looking, Emily will never know it was there, just eat the damn thing."

So I put the fork in my mouth and closed my lips to get the marshmallow off.

OOOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!HOLLLLYYYY MOTHERRRR OF (expletive deleted).

The fork was white freakin hot from being in direct contact with a flame for 5 minutes. It was hotter than hot. It was hotter than the surface of the sun. Hotter than haties. Hotter than Patti in a tight dress. But since we use space age forks made with material from NASA, obtained through secret contacts, the handle was not hot at all. But the prongs were hot enough to boil a pot of cold water.

As soon as I put the fork in my mouth I heard the skin on the inside of my upper and lower lip burn. It sounded like a strip of bacon was put into an already hot frying pan.

I immediately pulled it out but the damage was done. Now, keep in mind, it was about 7:30 and just about 12 hours later I had to get up in front of a room full of people in Hartford, a town two hours away, and give a presentation.

So I put ice in my mouth, gritted through the pain, and prayed it would not swell.

After about an hour of fairly severe pain, I realized it was not going to swell up. But it left a bad taste in my mouth, literally, and both upper and lower lips, on the inside, were raw and sensitive.

Net-net of this story? S'mores taste good.