No I'm not a liar, liar, liar,
nor are my pants on fire,
but as I post on my blog
news comes via doorbell wire
neighbour says, "fire in the chimney"
oh my, my, yes I do see
phone 911
exit children and family
and that is where I'm going to stop the poem- because it starts gettin' a little dorky.
So yeah- I'm finishing up my last blog post. Click publish. Doorbell rings. It's Dave, the neighbour, telling us we have a flu fire. I tell my husband and then go google what to do- from what I read it sounds kind of like I shouldn't be googling, but rather phoning the fire department.
As I'm on the phone with 911 (for the second time in a month- not including the impaired driver call- for which call I didn't place myself)- they ask me if I can see flames. I go outside- expecting to see a glowing orange chimney. At first I can't see anything- and then I see flames and big ashes. Ohh I says to myself: "oh self that's not good"- and to the operator I say- "yes I can see flames". I'm instructed to get everyone out of the house- 2 sleeping children, a baby, a few relatives, my husband and myself. Most of us go to the neighbours while my husband and brother-in-law wait for the fire trucks.
I don't really know the neighbours- but they are nice and they have a 2 year-old grandson and renovations going on in their house- all of which is entertaining for my wee ones. The fire trucks come. I tell the 2 year old - grandson that we ordered them special for him. He doesn't believe me but likes them anyway. I worry that the caramel corn and brownies I was making are going to get smokey- funny worry when your house is in "perril". (Maybe I really didn't think it was in perril).
Anyways it's taking forever so I go over to our house. Turns out it's a pretty bad chimney fire and we're still not allowed back in. They have to take out the wood stove and cut away part of our ceiling. They ask real nice about the ceiling thing. (As if there is any option and that arguing with them in the matter would make any sense). I'm actually kind of happy- the renovations are just starting in that room and we were going to rip it down eventually anyways. Maybe if they could take it with them when they go too... hmm that would be good. (Oh yeah- did I mention we just moved in a couple weeks ago?)
They only take down a chunk. I ask if I can take their picture- I've got a blog and I'm determined to meet Oprah- maybe somehow this will help. Maybe they'll be famous after this. Maybe. My husband reminds me that my time is ticking to get on the Oprah show. I know. I'm a little discouraged- but I'm not suppose to admit that.
Anyways I take their picture... as you can see. Turns out we have a funky chimney- with a weird 45 degree angle in it- where things kept getting trapped- and today decided to ignite. Took them quite awhile to get it out... and long story short we can no longer use our woodstove unless we want frequent, friendly, firefighting faces (and fires in the chimney) visiting. Well we were planning on (someday) replacing that... perhaps sooner then later- since we just finished stacking our order of wood yesterday!
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