Remember The Talking Heads “Burning Down The House” and when we all got out toilet paper and shaving cream on mischief night?

Even if you don’t, it was the night before Halloween this year, of course, and mom was searching for old traditions. She asked, “With it being mischief night, do you think we should be concerned about the new house? Maybe we should turn some lights on.”

I laughed, “No one does mischief night anymore.” But then I had to correct myself, well, no one except our neighbors and their friends. They have somehow found themselves in this mischief night tradition where they toilet paper and shaving cream each other’s yards every year. But other than them, I reassured her, “It’s not a thing anymore.”

Then there was the other family tradition I grew up with: our house always caught on fire, despite the embarrassing fact that my grandpa was the assistant fire chief of Brooklyn waterways. We, of all people, should have known better.

We became the running joke in the fire department. “It’s summer, about time to get a call from the Cunninghams.”

But, first, for the setup. Once, our fire alarm went off accidentally. I saved all my dolls and sat in the backyard even though it was just a false alarm. I didn’t believe Mom and Dad when they told me I could come back inside. I finally got hungry enough to come in again when there was still no fire or alarm, and it was time to eat.

But the fire alarm didn’t go off when our built-in wooden wall stereo system started smoking. Does this scream built-in-the-70s or what?

Mom called the firemen and asked for just one truck. We don’t need any more than that, just one fireman to come and check that it’s nothing.

But three firetrucks showed up and parked alongside our street, and we weren’t above the mortification of having all our neighbors gather to find out that nothing was wrong. No, our house was not burning down.

Mom even directed the firemen so their trucks wouldn’t back up over her flowers, and when they came in with their axes, she told them not to hack her walls. So they daintily cut the unit out of the wall to make sure there was no electrical fire. Registering that there was no fire but a lot of commotion, I was mostly embarrassed.

So, that brings us to fire number 2. The roof was on fire. I mean it, the ceiling fan had caught on fire, made a hole in the top, and flames were gushing out like a movie scene.

I was baking a cake because it was Dad’s birthday, and Mom drove in, saw the flames, stopped the car mid-driveway, and ran wildly to the house with her hands waving in the air, screaming, “The house is on fire.” The alarm didn’t go off, but, to be safe, I turned off the oven and followed her outside. No way! A fire was coming out of our roof.

And there was that matter of saving things. I was too old to save my dolls, so in a panic, I grabbed what mattered most at that moment in time. I still live with the shame of what I grabbed:

• A big boombox (and not even a cool one).
• A drawer from my mom’s bedroom of her costume jewelry.
• My 76ers bucket lamp.

So I put those items on the front porch.

Mom caught on and started grabbing wads of clothes off the rack from her closet. But she was smart enough to put them in her car. And then we heard the fire trucks, and Mom snapped out of the shock. “We’ve saved enough; move the stuff off the front porch so the firemen could get in.”

I tried to hide the junk in the front yard. I had gone to such grave lengths to save this stuff; it was no time to put it back in the house.

Surprisingly, it only impacted the roof. Great! A fire that didn’t warrant the embarrassment of facing the neighbors while I retrieved my junk.

So we were ready and waiting for fire number three. We could deal with this fire thing. It was nothing more than mischief night. We didn’t know what we were in for. It was the real deal.

I was living out of the house by then, so I didn’t have time to figure out what not to save, but they were doing construction on my parent’s house and welding on a 100-degree day (of course, it was summer), and the attic caught on fire.

The damage was so significant, the water was knee-deep throughout the house, and my bedroom had no roof, so they knocked the house down and built a new one overtop the old one.

But for old time’s sake, as an adult in the house, one dark, windy night, I had a perfect view from my bathroom window of a flame that was getting feverishly out of control in the woods. I went downstairs and opened the door, and yep, I could smell the fire. It was coming towards us, and we didn’t have much time to spare.

So I woke up Alex, and since he didn’t have his glasses on, what did he know when stars look like big blobs in the sky, he agreed it most definitely could be a fire. So he called the firemen. And then when he opened the door and didn’t smell the smoke, oh no, I didn’t just wake up and imagine that the guy’s garage light was a fire?

By the time the firemen arrived, we had figured out the source of our danger (me). But Alex couldn’t convince the fireman. They still had to go walk in the woods to track down the simulated fire while I hid in the bedroom.

But we’re talking about mischief night here. And we were all in bed just when it was about over, and Skylar ran in the room saying our neighbor just texted that there were fire trucks at the new house.

Prepared to run over in my pajamas and bathrobe, Alex warned me to change. I was smart enough to listen to him, at least partially, and I put a coat over my pajamas. Next door, we discover several fire trucks, firefighters, and then the police. And then these girls were taking photos in front of the fire truck with several firefighters. It was a sight to behold.

It was a false alarm, low battery this time, but since a window looked broken (probably during construction), the police got in on the fun too.

So the cops took off their shoes and did a point-to-point of the new house (or maybe it was just a home inspection) while I talked to a fireman. He said he had burnt his hand in our fire, but now they wear protective gear where the jacket can’t ride up.

It was much easier to have this conversation in my coat (and not my bathrobe). So I was fascinated, “Oh, was that new jacket designed because of our fire?” And he said, “No, it’s just new technology since then. You know that fire was like 20 years ago.”

I didn’t have the heart to ask which fire was it. We’ve had a few.

So we’re walking home with our neighbor, who texted me what was going on, her dog, and the girls (her daughter and friends) who posed for the photo earlier. They couldn’t sleep (maybe raiding the candy bowl had something to do with it).

They came out for a simple walk–what a mischief night it turned out to be.

The one girl said to me, “I was really scared. I thought someone had died.”

And then the other girl dramatically placed herself on the ground in a dead man’s pose the way you’d find someone at a crime scene.

The scared girl ignored her friend, so I did too, “Just think of it as a great adventure. How often do you get to have a sleepover and get to take your picture with the firemen?”

And maybe I finally can get to the point. When will I ever stop telling stories?

But Covid hit us in munch the same way–like a false alarm on mischief night. Let’s not pretend that we don’t see the girl lying in the road playing dead while the other girl’s terrified.

But then it went awry. That false alarm turned into a fire. It changed our lives like a mischief night prank gone wrong.

Yes, the matter of mischief night.

No signs of mischief in my neighbor’s yard. Just as I pointed it out, could the tradition have come to an end? My neighbor said, this year, her family did their friend’s yard first. Her friend called and said, “Are we supposed to get back at you now?” And our neighbor said, “You got us all those years before, so maybe now we’re even.”

When can we say the same thing about Covid? It burnt down the house; yes, we’re still picking up the wreckage and trying to make sense of it all. But let’s put it in its place. It was more than a bit of mischief; it was devastating. We’ve got to pick up the wreckage, not rush to find our old lives again, trust that we’ll wade our way through this and work towards calling it even.