The Scary Story My Neighbor Told Me

So some time after the fire truck had left (thank you, Engine 8), another neighbor came home.  And she told me this story:

Well, she said, of course you called the fire department.  Before I lived here, I lived in a three-family house.  And I had just moved in the week before, and one night I was coming home from work late. And I drove down the block and I couldn't recognize the house. I couldn't find it.

And I thought, it should be right there, but it can't be that house, the one with all the fire trucks in front of it.... But it was that house, the one with all the fire trucks in front of it.

So what had happened was the family on the first floor had a fire in a closet.  And as soon as they found it, they called the fire department.  And the fire engine came and put it out.

But in the time it took for them to get there, the fire had spread through the whole first floor. It was totally destroyed. Everything was absolutely black, in every room. The walls were black. The couch was black. Every single thing.

On the second floor, the floor was ruined and burned, but none of the furniture was burned.

And on the third floor, where I lived -- my neighbor said -- nothing was burned. But everything smelled like smoke.  And that's how fast the fire spread -- the family on the first floor was home when the fire started and they called the fire department right away. And the fire truck came right away, but the whole first floor still burned by the time they put the fire out.

So -- my neighbor said -- you were right to call the fire department when the alarm went off. Because you never know. And you can't afford to wait.

And as for me -- I'm glad, of course, that there wasn't a real fire today.  But living, as I do, where I'm dependent on the safety habits of all the people in the building (and the safety of wiring and building construction that is almost a hundred years old), I'm also glad I have a fire engine right in the neighborhood.