Monday, May 19, 2014

Some Slightly Burnt Cookies and A Really Burnt Car

This weekend was full of exciting and adventurous activities. A group of ladies met and discussed Sarah Bessey's book Jesus Feminist, I finished Emma for the first time, Cami got to see a new "Miranda" episode, I baked cookies with notenough flour...oh, and our neighbor caught his car on fire. Just a day in the life.

I'm sure you all are dyyyyyyinngggg to hear this fantastical tale, and most assuredly I'll tell it unto you, but if you wanted to click this link riddy riddy fast and vote me to Rwanda, that'd be freaking amazing. Thank ye, thank ye. {Bonus: you can vote every 24 hours per device, so if you wanna hit this up on your mobile, work computer, iPad, library computer, etc., that'd be fantastical!}

So, obviously the most important part of the story is... cookies need ONE and 3/4 cup flour, not just 3/4 cup flour. What was I thinking? So while those were melting and crisping in my oven, my neighbor across the driveway was "fixing" his car. And by "fixing" I mean he was also in the melting and crisping mode.

First crisis first. My cookies were melting and crisping! Book club was starting in 45 minutes! I didn't want to go to the store!

While I mourned the first dozen cookies, Samara glanced out the window. And noticed flames. Big flames. Under the neighbor's car. And on top of the car. And there was smoke. Lots of smoke.

Suddenly, cookies seemed a whole lot less important.

The question of "what is the explosion radius of a car?" crossed my mind, and when I approximated the answer to be "really freaking large," I grabbed my phone and called 911. Samara had the presence of mind to grab our fire extinguisher {we had one in our laundry closet}, and we found that a random family had been driving by and stopped when they saw the vast amounts of smoke.

The guy grabbed our hose, but then decided our fire extinguisher was a better option. We unrolled the hose while he extinguished, and then he grabbed another hose to connect to ours so it would actually reach the car. My sister Ellen walks up the driveway at this point, and I thought, I can't let this car blow up because I don't want my sister to die and then, So much for book club. #dramaqueen.

As many of you firefighting experts know, water doesn't do a whole lot of anything when fighting fire and oil and gasoline, so another extinguisher was desired. Our condo had one in a pretty little box on the other side of my next-door neighbor's unit, and Ellen was trying to open the box without success {why why why don't those boxes just have normal opening latches, for the love of pete!?}. I ran inside and grabbed the hammer from our tool collection {thanks, Dad!} and Ellen was a total badass and broke the glass and got the fire extinguisher out.

This whole time, I'm on the phone with the 911 operator. "No, there is no one in the cars. Yes, there might be people in the building. No, the building is not on fire, but there is a heck of a lot of smoke...gray, dark smoke...now it's white. They just used the fire extinguisher. It's ok, I can hear the sirens."

The firefighters got the hose going and finished putting the fire out, and all was well with the world. The building had some smoke stains on the side, but nothing else caught on fire and nothing exploded. As you may recall from October, car explosions are one of my irrational {but now justified!} fears.

The best part of the whole adventure was after the fire was put out {obviously}. The guy who had stopped with his family came over and was all "thanks for letting me use your hose. Sorry for freaking you out" or whatever, and we told him "thank YOU for stopping!" He and his wife waved goodbye and starting walking back to their car and their son noticed my slippers and hollers victoriously, "Doctor Who!" with a big smile. Samara and I cheered "yeah!" and Ellen rolled her eyes at us all. Twas great. Whovians saved the world, one crisis at a time.

Making memories, that's what we do best up in here! Later this week I will hopefully be sharing about Jesus Feminist and our discussion, so stay tuned. And thanks again for voting!

6 comments:

  1. Oh my...way to think on your feet! :-)

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  2. Wow, what an adventure!!! Way to go! Heroes. :)

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  3. What an adventure is right! Wow!

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  4. Wow! That IS a story!

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  5. Bwahaha, oh my gosh. What must have been terrifying in the moment certainly made an entertaining story! Good job with quick thinking and saving the building and such. But I have to ask: What did you do about the cookies?

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    1. "Laugh at it later" is a life motto of mine, for sure! :)
      The first batch of cookies became a cookie crumble thing {meaning we stuck them in ziplocks and hid them from our guests} and the second and third dozen were just a little softer than usual, but still yummy :)

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