Underwater Firepits

Once upon a time, a person who lived in a firepit had a conversation with a person who lived underwater.  They had trouble communicating. On the face of it, they understood where each other lived, but both of them were picturing an underwater firepit. Which couldn’t possibly exist.

“Here’s what I don’t understand about where you live,” said the firepit person. “If you’re all underwater, how do you keep yourselves on fire?”

“We’re not on fire at all,” said the underwater person. “We’re wet people, not fire people.”

“Right, I get that,” said the firepit person. “But with the wetness…don’t you just keep accidentally extinguishing yourselves?”

“No, see,” said the underwater person. “We were never on fire to begin with. No fire.”

“Right, but I’m just saying, when I’m wet, I put it out with a towel. Haven’t you all ever considered doing that? Then, you can stop the wetness before it puts out the fire.”

“No, we WANT to be wet. We don’t WANT to be on fire.”

“I mean, you can be on fire, if you try a little harder. Like, I drink water, too, but I don’t let it rule me.”

“Look, I don’t know how to explain this to you any better. We’ve never been on fire, ever. We have no desire to be on fire. We’re not trying to be on fire. We will never be on fire.”

“You could be if you tried harder.”

“Okay, to put it another way, why aren’t you wet? Why are you all on fire? Why don’t you go underwater and put your fire out?”

“Because it would put the fire out, you daft idiot!”

Meanwhile, everyone else at the party was quietly resolving that they would never invite both of these guys to the same event ever again.