My dad grew up in England in the 20s and 30s, and they always burned coal in their fireplaces (wood much harder to come by there). He always talked about how long it burned and was kind of nostalgic for it, even though we lived in southern California and he was a contractor, so we always had lots of wood from his jobs. When I was a teenager, he decided to get a big bag of it, and it really did make great fires, but it’s messy and smells bad.

We also have a small lump in a little square box with our Christmas stuff that someone got as a novelty gag gift and we never threw it away.