Blaze of Glory

Who doesn't like a good braai? Standing around the fire, listening to big hunks of meat sizzling on the grill filling the air with a delicious aroma. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. Now, in our company we have two offices; one in Centurion and one in Gallo Manor. Because most of our technical staff live in Centurion, there is no need for a caretaker at our Centurion offices. Our Gallo Manor offices contain our admin and finance staff and, because no-one resides close to the office, we have employed a caretaker who lives there and makes sure all stays well. I realise at this point that you must be wondering what a braai and our office arrangements have to do with one another, but I shall explain shortly. See, our caretaker developed a hankering for a good piece of meat roasted over a fire. Okay, so far so good. He then lit said fire before realising "Dur....I don't have meat.....hur hur hur" and then leaving to go get some. This is his official story. Whether he really wanted to have a braai or whether he was preparing to make a sacrifice to the gods of stupidity only he knows.

There was a bit of a breeze last night, and in the time it took him to go to the shops to buy some intelligence, the wind blew some sparks from his braai onto a log pile. And not a small log pile. A towering stack that resembles a hacked down forest. Seeing as our spring season has so far been reaching volcano-like temperatures, the ground is dryer than a piece of sandpaper stranded atop a rock in the middle of the desert. Thus a small spark from the braai set the log pile blazing. When our hapless caretaker returned, he found the backyard looking like this....

After presumable wetting himself and maybe crying just a little, he grabbed a garden hose and bravely attempted to put out the inferno. This had about as much effect on the fire as peeing on it. Thankfully a passing police car noticed the towering flames and alerted the fire brigade, who spent quite a significant amount of time trying to put out the blaze. After a few hours of frantic activity the backyard looked like a scene from the apocalypse but at least the fire was out. Thankfully the flames never reached the building so the damage, while looking terrible, wasn't actually that bad. You can be assured that we will have another braai at our offices in the near future. Our main course? The caretaker.....