Okay, Who Brought the Marshmallows?

Have I mentioned lately that things aren't going so well for us? In June I broke my ankle. In July Carmen was attacked at the dog park. In August Greg had to have the steroid injection in his back. Remember how I said I hoped September was going to be better than August? Remember that? Well, it's not.

We were sitting in the office tonight just doing our usual evening stuff when the doorbell rang and someone knocked on the door. Greg was on the cell phone with his mom, but headed downstairs to yell at whoever was pounding on the door about the meaning of our no soliciting sign. He opened the door, then ran back in to the house for a shirt and ran back out yelling, "Call 9-1-1! The house is on fire!"

Well, there aren't too many words that can really get the blood pumping, but that sure is one of them. So I went back in to the office and dialled 9-1-1. I never know what to say to those people. I think I said something stupid like "Hello, my house is on fire and I was wondering if you could send the fire department over?" The operator asked me a bunch of questions that I couldn't answer like, "What part of the house is on fire?"

"Um, I don't know. My husband just yelled for me to call 9-1-1 and report the fire."

"Do you see flames or smoke?"

"No."

"Can you go look?"

"Well, no not really. I am recovering from a broken ankle and can't move very fast. Can you just send the fire department, please?"

So she tells me to get out of the house and the fire department are on their way. I grabbed my purse and Cleo and ran (okay, I didn't run because of my ankle, but I limped quickly) out to the car. Cleo was freaked and jumped out of the car as soon as I put her down, so I had to chase her around the yard. I finally had to tackle her like she was a football before I could get a hold of her. Here's a tip for you: don't play cat football when recovering from a broken ankle.

At this point I still have no idea what is going on. I ran (limped) back inside for the dogs and then again for Zinger, who was way less freaked that Cleo.

Finally, I made it around to the side of the house and see this:


Those are my neighbors and Greg and what used to be our plastic shed. Apparently Melissa, the girl that lives next door, was watching TV and smelled smoke. She went outside and saw the flames and ran over to knock on our door and then went to get the garden hose. Our good friends across the street, Wayne, was taking in his trash and saw the smoke and ran over and grabbed our hose. The neighbors that live behind us saw the smoke, jumped the fence, and put THEIR hose on it.

By the time I got there, the excitement was over. Then the firemen came. They are less than a mile away, so I really don't know what took them so long. There was no real sense of urgency that I could see. They wandered over and looked at the shed and determined the fire was out.


Since the firemen couldn't figure out why the fire started, they called the arson investigator. He's been here about 2 hours and hasn't come up with a reason for the fire to start. We stored the usual stuff in the shed: lawnmower, weedwacker (electric), bug spray, tools, wood, fertilizer, gloves, that kind of stuff. The gasoline wasn't inside the shed. None of the fertilizer or bug spray was burned. Weird.

So here's what the shed looks like now. Note the unburned bottles of weed killer and bug spray.


This is the lawnmower. That blue thing on the top is Greg's wet suit (don't ask me why that was out there, I have no idea). That big can on the right is a big can of fence stain.

Here are some pictures of the firemen. They brought out their folding chairs and waited around "keeping an eye on the area to make sure the fire didn't start up again and keeping people away" until the arson investigator showed up. They were nice enough, but gave me a lecture about how it's okay to call 9-1-1 back and tell them the house isn't really on fire. Um, see this black thing on my leg, fireman dude? Not moving fast enough and you only are a mile away!

Then another fireman told me it was a good thing we called because if we had waited any longer the house would definitley have caught fire. Then we would really have had a problem. I'm sure they enjoyed the hour of sitting around shooting the bull while they waited for the investigator on the clock.



Here's Zinger in the car. I guess he was scared and climbed up behind the pedals. I thought he looked cute.


So that was my exciting evening. It's now 9:35. Greg is still outside with the arson investigator, so I think I'll go see what's happening.