Marshmallow misery

We went camping and hiking up on Mount Rainier this weekend. I guess I should say in Mount Rainier National Park, not on Mount Rainier – I’m no Lou Whittaker.* We stayed at the Ohanapecosh campgrounds, with our tent not THREE FEET from a lovely babbling brook. We hiked Silver Falls on Saturday, the Skyline trail on Sunday, and Snow Lake Trail on our way out of the park yesterday. It was a lot of fun, and I don’t even care that everything in the car smells like campfire smoke.

Everything was awesome, except for the 3rd degree burn I got from some flying hot marshmallow. I don’t know what possessed me to make s’mores considering I don’t like them all that much, but something took hold of me when I saw the S’mores Fixins display in the grocery store and we found ourselves with a package of six Hershey bars, generic graham crackers, and some squished looking marshmallows stuffed in a bag. One of my marshmallows caught on fire and as I was blowing on it it (I didn’t think Stop, Drop, and Roll was a good rule for a consumable) a big chunk flew onto my wrist and stuck there. It hurt, but not too terribly much, so I stuck a band aid on the burn and went to sleep. I woke up the next morning feeling like my hand was going to fall off. Turns out I burned through a few layers of skin. Or that marshmallow did.

I’m feeling better now, typing with some badass prescription ointment and a big bandage on my hand, but I have to wonder – how accurate was that scene at the end of Ghostbusters? When the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man explodes, there are no screams from agonized burn victims, there is no melting paint on cars or other misery! Instead it’s like a great big party of melted marshmallow. I think if this were to actually happen, several hundred people would have died terrible, gooey deaths due to severe burns over 75% of their bodies. I’m just saying.