When I was about 8 years old, I unintentionally created the perfect conditions to set my buddy Jacobo’s house on fire. It was a sweltering late summer evening, around 7 pm. The stage was set for a family-friendly disaster, and here’s how it all unravelled.

My older sister burst into our parents’ bedroom, her face wet with tears, barely able to articulate her words. She’s always been the undisputed champion of waterworks; looking like a drowning cat that had seen a ghost. In my juvenile wisdom, I thought I was in the midst of a nightmare, and decided to snap myself and my sister out of it by delivering what I believed was a loving, brotherly slap on her cheek. Bad move. It worked but also left her feeling quite humiliated. After she regained her composure, she delivered the shocker of the century. Jacobo’s place was blazing like Celine Dion at the Caesars Palace, and I was being invited to witness the hottest (literally) show in town from our very own backyard. Firefighters and their flashy trucks had taken over our once-quiet back street, turning it into a chaotic fire-fighting carnival. Our house, the one we’d inherited from my grandparents, had two entrances – the official, front door and the backdoor, aka the back trap. This would later become my favorite secret passage during my teenage escapades. No euphemism intended; it was simply the stealthy path to adventure without raising any parental alarms. But that is a different story.

Jacobo’s house nearly went up in flames, but it didn’t get the memo that most Mexican houses are as resilient as a rock. The reason being that in general, houses in Mexico are built from cement and brick; so the house stood its ground, and only the stuff inside burned. My dear friend Jacobo, his mom, his dad, and the whole trio of brothers managed to escape the fiery fiasco unscathed. It turns out they had a good reason to be absent that day – they were all at their karate class, probably mastering the art of fire escaping. Meanwhile, Jacobo’s dad was off doing whatever dads do when they’re not at home, perhaps trying to set a new record for the world’s longest grocery store line.

I guess I’ll never have the full, unadulterated truth about what sparked the flames at Jacobo’s place. When we met again just a few days after the fiery spectacle, we were back at school, but he had gone radio silent with me. It was like playing a one-sided game of charades, with me eagerly guessing while he expertly mimed indifference for what felt like an eternity. Among curious gazes from our schoolmates, I couldn’t resist probing for answers, but he kept his eyes averted. I soon learned that curiosity killed the cat but resurrected our friendship, as Jacobo, perhaps out of sheer pity for my persistent pestering, finally broke the silence.

He leaned in, as if sharing the most classified of state secrets, and revealed with a grin, “I told you we weren’t allowed to touch the living room organ because we suspected it had a short circuit”.