Top Ten Silliest Calls for Help

“Fire station,” my partner answers the phone while I groan in my sleep. “No ma’am, we don’t do that. No, the chief’s not here. I’ll pass that on, sorry.”

“Who?” I manage. 

“Lady on the East end. We didn’t pick up her garbage this morning. It’s garbage day and she wants to know why we skipped her.”

“But we don’t . . .oh hell, never mind.” 

Who calls a fire station and why? 

The answer might surprise you, and, to that end – with the help of my wonderful coworkers – I have compiled a Top Ten list of Silliest Calls for Help:

1) Garbage Collecting. It’s not in our scope of practice; it’s odd to us that so many residents believe it to be. In fact, we ourselves often forget to put our own garbage out, and have been known to come flying out the door with a Hefty bag while the truck meanders on past.

2) Pool Maintenance. We can’t fill your new pool with water from our tanker. That water is reserved for fires, and besides it came from the canal and, trust me, you would never, ever want to swim in it. No, we don’t know how to make it clean.

3) If you are the Captain and you want to offer us a cruise . . . We do want to go, we do! But no matter how long we “hold” you never come back.

4) Utilities. Beyond our control! And if you’re ComCast, we can’t add the fancy movie channels. Some of those might be inappropriate anyway. Our trustees are religious and they pay the bills.

5) We’re not always sure what time the post office is closed for lunch.

6) Or what the supper special at the local tavern is.

7) Or why there’s no school today.

8) We’ll be glad to set up the meeting room for the Cub Scouts, but we can’t help you with how many snacks you’ll need to bring.

9) The Chief will get mad at us if we let your children and Dalmatian puppy pose on the truck for a family portrait. You call him.

10) We would love to come and kill the bat fluttering around your kitchen but you’re not even in our district and if somebody here has a heart attack while we’re out there swinging a tennis racket . . . well, that could get ugly.

Which of course brings us to all the millions of good, good reasons to call us! Don’t wait if you have pain or sickness or fire! If your carbon monoxide detector goes off, your life alert beeps or your car door slams on your fingers! We’ve come for dogs in the canal and even cats in trees. We love you! We just can’t do anything about the garbage pick-up.

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An Introduction by Author Lucy Crowe

Hello! I’m so excited to be writing my first-ever blog - mostly, I think, because I have known from a very early age that much of life deserves to be recorded. I was the nerd kid on the school bus with a notebook in my lap, the teenager stuffing her journal under her mattress, and now, the book mouse at the fire station who is forever plugging away on the lap top.

It’s okay! I’ve found love and acceptance amongst my peers in spite of my oddity!

About that.

Webster’s defines a peer as “a person who is equal to another in abilities, qualifications, age, background and social status,” but the thesaurus nails the relationship in a far clearer fashion with “cohort, buddy, partner.”

My peers are EMTs and firefighters. They populate two separate and very rural fire stations and share my life – my coffee, my sleeping bag, my little-pink-sugars – for days at a time. Ours is a unique existence, in which we are not only dependent on each other in so many ways, but we also actually live together. This situation, combined with the occasional hair-raising adrenaline-laced call, has made for more than one intriguing tale.

Which brings me to my second group of peers – the story-tellers. These folks share my gift/eccentricity/curse.  They understand my endless quest to set life to words, to form pretty phrases around the blasé for maximum palatability. Mostly, we exist for each other within our laptop screens, where we buzz encouragement back and forth via emails and writer’s forums. And so, ours is an unusual, but highly valued rapport. A kinship, of sorts.

Beyond peers, of course – and certainly of more importance – is my family. A husband and children who never quit shining for me, loving parents, brilliant and noisy siblings.  They give my days texture and beauty, and their personalities have breathed life into year upon year of my existence.

As well as filling out the pages of my stories.

And so - much to write about! And many reasons to be happy!

Thank you so much for visiting my brand new blog! I hope to see you again!

Here is a picture of my lovely kitty Gothika, who generally answers to the absurd and disgraceful nickname of Fatman. He has been perched on the back of my chair, just over my shoulder, throughout the entirety of this posting, and was most insulted when I failed to mention him in my circle of loved ones. His expression could only be described as “apoplectic”, lol.

Yes, this is him. “Admire,” says he