There was a little excitement last night here at Casa Chaobell.
I was sitting there on my sofa playing Lego Star Wars, minding my own business after a day of running around town attempting to pay my Internet bill (which I couldn’t because apparently someone at Cricket’s mothership thought yesterday was Easter and shut the system down statewide–I shit you not–but that’s another story) and buying new workout shoes and hair dye and stuff, when there came a pounding at my door.
“That apartment down there is on fire!” is not a greeting you want to hear when you open the door and see your neighbor out there. Neither is “Do you have something that can break a window?”
Yeah, four doors down–smell of smoke, smoke alarm blaring its lungs out, nobody home.
ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck
Another neighbor broke into the apartment to see if this was something he could deal with. Now there was smoke pouring out the door and the newly broken window. “Has anyone called 911 yet?” I asked. Nobody said “yes,” so I figured, fuck it, better to have a redundant call than no call at all, right?
So I called 911.
“Houston 911, do you need police, fire, or ambulance?”
“Fire,” I said. “The address is–”
“Please stay on the line, I’m going to transfer you.”
“Wh-”
Silence.
Then a recording along the lines of “You have reached the non-emergency reporting line, if this is an emergency please hang up and dial 911.”
What the fuck?
I noticed a few other neighbors now with their phones out making similar calls. They kept getting put on hold or hung up on.
Other Neighbor came out of the apartment then. “It’s out!” he said, and there was much rejoicing.
So apparently, these neighbors, these lovely, lovely neighbors, do you know what they did? They put a pot of something on the stove, turned it on, left it there, and then went WHO THE FUCK KNOWS WHERE while this pot of shit on the stove cooked down to flammable dregs which-gaspu, daishokku–CAUGHT THE FUCK ON FIRE. The fire had just started threatening to catch on the cabinets when Other Neighbor put it out.
Okay. So the fire was out. But still, we figured it would be a good idea to have the fire department come look at it anyway. And I don’t have the non-emergency number of the fire department handy. And there was still a hell of a lot of smoke in the air. So I called 911 again, as did the neighbor who banged on my door.
“What city, please?”
“Pasadena,” I said.
“Do you need police, fire, or ambulance?”
“Fire, please.”
“What?”
“FIRE.”
“Please stay on the line, I’m going to transfer you.”
Oh shit, not again. “Um, okay–”
I glanced over. Neighbor was apparently talking to a real person and giving all the necessary details. Which was good, because I got hung the fuck up on again.
So fast-forward about twenty minutes. We heard sirens. There was much rejoicing. The sirens stopped somewhere that wasn’t our building. The rejoicing stopped.
About twenty minutes after that, one lone fire marshal car pulls up outside the gate. “Did someone call the fire department here?” he asked.
Chorus of indignant “YES!” from me and the gathered neighbors outside, and I thought I heard at least one sotto voce “yasonofabitch” tacked on. “About FIVE OR SIX OF US DID,” someone else said. Fire Marshal Bill came upstairs and went into the apartment.
About five minutes after that, a fire truck showed up. It’s a good thing Other Neighbor had the balls to break into that apartment and put that fucking fire out because if he’d waited for the fucking fire department, we might have all been homeless today.
A few firemen went into the apartment. And down on the street, one little car cruised past the fire marshal car and the fire truck… slowed down… surveyed the scene… and kept going.
“Um,” Neighbor said, “I think that’s them.” That would be “them” as in “the fuckheads who went off and left a pot of shit boiling away on the stove.”
And then I looked over at the apartment again, and the manager was standing out there not looking pleased.
The car came back… slowed down… found somewhere to park that didn’t have a fire truck blocking it off.
Fire Marshal Bill and the fire truck packed up and left. Apartment Manager Lady and Maintenance Man remained outside the door. Ohhhhh shit.
Here came the Idiot Neighbors up the stairs with two huge baskets of laundry, very carefully not making eye contact with anyone. Manager Lady followed them into the apartment. I don’t know what was said–we all went back inside at that point. I certainly hope the sentiment of “WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING” made its way in there.
I hope they have to pay for the window Other Neighbor busted out and any damage the fire did, at the very least. Actually, I hope they get their asses evicted. In before “wow you bitch that’s kind of extreme don’t you think,” I’m sorry, it’s just–actually, no, I’m not sorry. That might teach them not to fuck off to the laundromat and leave shit cooking. I understand accidentally leaving the curling iron on on the counter and nipping down to the corner for a Coke real quick or something, but as for “oops I left a huge pot of food on the stove on medium-high while I went off for several hours to do laundry” –no. Just no. Stupidity that could have left us all homeless or worse is stupidity I don’t want living four doors down from me.
So everyone’s okay, and I’m going to have some words for someone about the epic pool of fail that was our 911 service last night, I just–FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. fff.
…in brighter news: PUBLIC TRANSIT: WE CAN HAS. Currently pretty limited, but still: WE HAS A BUS.
Originally published at Fire of Unknown Origin. You can comment here or there.
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