The public library here in Tuscaloosa has a summer readi...
The public library here in Tuscaloosa has a summer reading program that includes special events on Tuesday afternoons. ��This week a few firefighters from the local fire department came to talk to the kids about fire safety and show them their equipment, culminating in a tour of the fire engine. ��My kids have always adored firefighters (my daughter wanted to be one for a while before deciding she’d rather be an artist and art teacher instead) so they were very enthusiastic about all this. ��They sat up front with the other kids while Pete and I sat in the back, Pete analyzing x-ray data on his laptop, me idly checking email and Twitter on my phone.
It was when they started dressing one of the firefighters up in all the gear that I started paying attention. ��They went piece by piece: pants, jacket, boots, gloves, helmet. ��When they put the face shield and oxygen mask on the guy, they made a point of showing that the firefighter��was still the same nice, fun, fatherly guy, only with something over his face that protected him and helped him breathe. ��It was a good thing, because the kids were, of course, likely to be scared, and it could be deadly if a kid ran in terror from a firefighter that was trying to save them from a burning building. ��Heck, I’d probably freak out if I saw someone in one of those things coming at me through the smoke.
Then they handed the guy an ax, kidding around that “this is the key to��EVERY DOOR.” ��Again, good thing, because a guy with an ax is freaking terrifying.
I speak from experience.
When I was a junior in college, I lived off-campus in a tiny little studio apartment, just me and my cat Jane. ��I was reading one day, minding my own business, when the building’s fire alarm went off. ��My first instinct was to ignore it, since surely it was a malfunction or something, and not��actually a fire. ��No fire alarm I had ever heard had ever had anything to do with an actual fire. ��So I went on reading.
The fire alarm continued. ��But it was the sirens that made me rethink my assessment. ��When the sirens seemed to stop outside the front of my building (my windows faced the back, so I had to guess) I figured I should probably get out of the building. ��I dug out the cat carrier, hunted down the cat, and headed for the door. ��I felt the door and the doorknob to see if either were hot (thank you, firefighters in my hometown who came to talk when I was a kid). ��Neither were, but I looked out the peephole just to make sure the hallway wasn’t on fire.
A firefighter was climbing up the stairs.
Carrying an ax.
There was no��way I was going out that door.
I turned to my windows, which lead out to an ancient black wrought iron fire escape. ��I was just about to take that way out when the fire alarm stopped.
I stood for a moment, listening closely, wondering if it would start again, and��smelling the air for any hint��of smoke. ��Nothing on both counts. ��
I went back to the door and looked out the peephole again. ��The firefighter with the ax was in the hallway, but he had been joined by a second firefighter, and they were calmly talking. ��Figuring that the chances of two��deranged homicidal firefighters were pretty low, I opened the door a little and looked out.
“Hey,” I said. ��“Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” the guy with the ax said. ��“Everything’s good. ��No need to worry.”
“Great. ��Um. ��Thanks!”
It’s a good, important thing for the firefighters to show the kids that the firefighter with an ax and breathing apparatus who comes to rescue you from a fire is a good and trustworthy guy that you should not be afraid of. ��It’s a good thing for the parents to remember, too. ��Although, if I were to be in that situation again? ��There’s��still no way in hell I’d go out that door.
