What’s Life Without Excitement?

I had a topic planned for tonight, but something else just came up, so it’ll get bumped to tomorrow.

See, we just had a little excitement over here. I was playing some Halo 2 with a buddy of mine when there was frantic knocking at our door, then a moment later across the hall. Upon opening it, I was told by a frantic woman that we needed to get out because there was a fire next to the building. I hurried out to take a look, and sure enough, there was a small fire in the voluminous pinestraw along the side. Nothing too much, but more flames than you want to see loose within 15 feet of your building.

I ran back inside, told Treeva to get out of the shower and to get dressed, then grabbed the fire extinguisher in the laundry closet and ran back outside. Now, you’d think that in the couple of minutes it took to knock on doors, take a look, go back inside to warn my wife and grab the extinguisher, that somebody else would’ve had the same idea. You’d think. Instead, I round the corner as I yank the pin out of the extinguisher and see a crowd standing in the parking lot doing absolutely nothing. Sure I can already hear sirens in the distance, but it’s not like it took the whole bunch of them to do that.

Unwilling to join the mindless sheep milling on the pavement I turned my attention to the flames and began to let loose with the magic spray that instantly snuffed them out. The embers in the pinestraw were more reluctant, but weren’t much of a worry, especially as the guy across the hall (apparently the only other one with any sense) came out with his extinguisher and helped me work on the embers. With the cannisters empty and most of the embers out we stepped back in satisfaction.

Then, seeing as how I was annoyed at the uselessness of the other residents I helpfully waved the fire extinguisher around, reminding them all that they have similar ones in their apartments. This one crazy woman then began to accuse me of being facetious about this fire (even challenging me to spell the word before being shut up by me rattling it off instantly) then ranted about how she had kids that she had to save (save meaning to bring to the fire she’s so scared of in order to stare it into submission with their help) and she just about got her ass beat when she started asking how many kids we had. Treeva didn’t like that one bit, but she managed to keep from teaching that woman a lesson in something other than spelling.

Shortly thereafter the fire department showed up with a plethora of trucks and quickly soaked down the area. We had a good little laugh with the folks across the hall and reminded ourselves that we’ll be out of here soon enough.

Now it’s time for bed. Tomorrow we get to go trade in the fire extinguisher, and later I’ll post topic I planned to post tonight, and will fill you in on the “soon enough” part of the previous paragraph.

There’s a teaser for ya.

~ by doughgeek on April 2, 2007.