I Like To Eat Soup During a Crisis

After Bernard and I hung out last night (more on that later), I called Lean. She was chillin’ at the ‘bucks so I stopped by to say hello. She told me about some recent drama at her apartment complex. Apparently, the couple across from her does two things very well: argue and smoke pot. Several nights, she’s heard screaming from their apartment of the “You stupid bitch!” and “I’m doing it because I love you!” variety. The guy was a maintenance man for the apartments, but was accused of stealing and yesterday, was fired because he missed four emergency calls.

After we chatted awhile, I headed home, where I planned to blog. I took Abbs out and changed into comfy clothes. I hadn’t eaten dinner, so I heated up a bowl of my yummy black bean stoup and sat down. Soon after, I received the following text message from Lean:

“It’s fun when u pull up to your apt and there are 2 fire trucks in your parking lot and your door has been kicked in. fire across the way.”

Eeeeeks! Within a few minutes, we were chatting on the horn. Apparently, the crazy arguing, pot smoking, recently-fired guy across the hall from her was making fries and a grease fire started. I was thinking that if it were me, I wouldn’t want to be alone, so I asked if she wanted me to come over. She said yes so I told her I had just heated up a bowl of soup and was going to eat it, and then head over. By the light of a new day, this seems terribly absurd. In my defense, I didn’t realize how serious the fire was and I hadn’t eaten dinner. As soon as I hung up, I realized that it was silly for me to sit there and eat soup. So I sent Lean a text message saying, “I like to eat soup during a crisis” and hit the road.

On the way over the Lean’s, I was thinking about what I would do in this situation. The first thing I imagined was that I would immediately want to know if Abby was OK and where she was. It almost brought tears to my eyes even THINKING about it.

As I walked up the steps to Lean’s apartment, I was SHOCKED at the damage. I’ve never been in close proximity to a fire of this nature. I brought my camera but thought it would be over-the-top to shoot pictures for my blog, while people were trying to put their doors back on the hinges from firemen having kicked them in.

The floors were drenched and everything reeked of smoke. Lean’s door showed signs of flames licking at its edges. I peeked in the apartment where the fire began and everything was trashed. The firemen had ripped up the carpet and torn through the walls. The kitchen walls were scarred black, outlining the path of the flames. To me, it looked like the fire burned a long time before anybody got to it. Lean said that grease fires can spread quickly, but so did the rumors that the guy set the fire to get back at the apartment complex for firing him.

I was very impressed with the way Lean handled everything. She knew what to do to get her door back in place and even helped her neighbors. Unfortunately, she has experience. When she was 21, her family’s house pretty much burned to the ground. Some of her childhood stuffed animals still show damage from the fire.

Lean said when she pulled up, she could see her light still on and the deck door cracked, so she hoped and prayed that her two kitties, Sabbath and Zipper were OK. They were very scared but thankfully, OK. One of the people who lives downstairs wasn’t home during the fire. Her apartment was a hellacious mess because of the water leaking down. She has a kitty and a dog, but Lean took them in until she got home.

I spent the night at Lean’s, but needless to say, we didn’t get much rest. Maintenance people and the building inspector were in and out all night. Later in the evening, we wandered into the hall to chat with everyone. The building inspector said she’s pretty sure it was arson. *gulp*

No one was hurt and the fact that it could’ve been a lot worse only served to scare me more. Lean and I started talking about fire safety. I think I have an extinguisher, but I need to double check. Also Lean said if you have pets, you should put a sticker on your doors and windows stating that fact, so that if there is a fire, the firemen will know to come save your critters. I told Lean I’d be Googling “fire safety” all day today.