Keep Away From Fire

I noticed tonight, after who only knows how long, that a couple of my tops have ‘keep away from fire’ written on their labels. Keep away from fire. It’s like they actually expect people to say; ‘oh look, there’s an open flame here. I know! I’ll introduce it to my top and they can be best of friends’. Who does that? Who, in their right mind, does that? And seriously, anyone who would do that – do you really think they would check the labels of their clothes first? Like, they’re about to do something and think; ‘oh wait, I better make sure this is allowed and not like a dangerous risk or anything’.

The label doesn’t bother to tell me not to put my top in the microwave. And it doesn’t tell me to wear a jacket over it when it’s raining because I might get wet and catch a cold and die. And what about acid? There’s no warning about keeping my top away from acid... And considering I accidentally put my elbow into acid at school once and saw the effect it had on my school jumper... well, I very much doubt my top is acid proof!

Unless that’s why they’ve put it there. In some deep, secret government lab, they have developed a type of cotton that is fire proof and somehow, this cotton ended up part of many tops out there. But, they don’t want the public to know! No, if the public knew they could buy cheap and comfortable tops that are fireproof, those places that sell the specially designed fire clothing for the stunt people of movies, they would lose out right?

Then again, it could be this message isn’t even meant for us normal people. Perhaps, it’s meant for those in the future who do in fact possess comfortable, everyday clothing that is fireproof. They could be walking along one day in the future and they come across this ancient clothing store buried in whatever apocalyptic ashes the future will hold. And maybe they were mauled by a mutant bear-wolf-lizard-fish thing... and they need a new top. So they grab one off the hanger in this ancient little store thinking that just like the one they need to replace, it’s fireproof. Of course, they would have to check the size because you can never be sure that the right size top is on the right size-marked hanger (I doubt this will ever change with time), and as they’re checking the size on the label – they see the message: ‘Keep away from fire’.

After that, they know they’re screwed because their hometown is encased in a wall of fire as a safety measure against the mutant bear-wolf-lizard-fish things. Without fireproof clothing, how are they supposed to get back inside? But at least they’ll still have their pride and won’t have to wander around half naked like a chick from a bad slasher flick. The whole getting back into their hometown, they can work that out once they actually reach the wall of fire – providing of course that they don’t get attacked again by anymore mutant bear-wolf-lizard-fish things and that they don’t spontaneously combust because that would be... well, bad.

Maybe that’s it. I mean, if that is the reason – that’s some pretty forward thinking on the clothing designer’s part. Now they just have to figure out a way to ensure their clothes actually survive whatever comes before the apocalyptic ashes.

As for me... I’ve got to get back to writing up my account of my visit to London. My next post will be dedicated to that and if I can figure out how, there might even be pictures!!! So, next time on the blog of Ray: ‘The Ghosts of London Underground’.