Burnin' Down the House!

Ok, so tonight, I leave work and call the 'Rents to see what they're up to. See, normally on Friday nights, they come into town and we have dinner together (i.e., Rose gets a free meal!) But they didn't call me before I left work, and I thought I'd check in... in case they were waffling about coming in, in which case, I'd try to tip them over into the free meal for Rose side of the fence.

Anywhoo.. my normal route home is Bellemeade Avenue. As I get onto Bellemeade, I notice two (ah ha ha) firetrucks on the road in front of me. I'm talking to dad and I'm telling him that I'm following two (ah ha ha) firetrucks down the road. He says that's fine as long as I don't follow them all the way to my house. Then the conversation disintegrates into to wondering if firetrucks from downtown would cover the area where I live. Meanwhile, the two (ah ha ha) firetrucks have driven off, and I continue meandering home.

I turn off of Bellemeade, onto my street, and what to my wondering eyes should appear? Two (ah ha ha) firetrucks in FRONT OF MY HOUSE! OMG!! WTF!!! Sigh.. My house has three apartments in it. I have one of the two (ah ha ha) downstairs apartments, and some YOUNG single mother just moved into the upstairs apartment. Turns out she was cooking something on her stove, and WHOOSH! FIRE!

I catch the girl who lives in the other downstairs apartment, like me, 40-ish (i.e., adult) and she tells me that all is ok, the fire is out, no damage done, but my apartment may be smokey. She said she'd just realized that I wasn't home and was planning on breaking down the door between our apartments to rescue my cats. Two problems with this...oh, I almost forgot (ah ha ha) ... 1) she's roaming around the front yard with her dog in her arms chatting with people; and 2) even if she got into my apartment, Gizmo (lovable coward that he is) was deep in hiding and she'd have never found him, and he'd have been one fricasseed feline!

It all worked out ok. My apartment doesn't appear to have the same vents as the upstairs apartment and the other downstairs apartments are on, so my apartment wasn't smokey. My Sophie girl was waiting eagerly for me when I walked in the door, but my chicken fricassee (Gizmo) was no where to be found. I'd assume that the sirens and lights of the two (... you know) firetrucks scared him and he ran under the hideabed. He's such a cutie.