Mommathon

I saw a report on the news the other night that brought back the night our house burned down. These poor people on the news had to sit and watch their house burn down because it was so cold outside the firemen couldn’t get the fire hydrants open and when they did, the line cracked because it was frozen. We were in a similar situation the night our house burned down. It was cold and it was dark and it was late and the fire hydrant was frozen shut. I had just gotten home from working at Minsky’s. It was a weekend, so it was at least 11 or so when I got home. I was downstairs in the basement getting ready to go to bed when someone came and BANGED on our door. I ran upstairs and someone said our house was on fire. My parents, who always take care of everything and I knew who would take care of this, started rushing around. I went back downstairs because my parents always took care of everything and never let harm come our way. Somehow I realized that this was the real deal and that my parents couldn’t make this one go away. When my mom and I walked out the front door there was a line of fire going up our living room wall. A nice woman down the street gave me some socks to wear since I had left in such a rush and we spent the night at the Holiday Inn. The next day, when we went back to survey the damage, we were reunited with our cat who had miraculously survived my crawling in the dryer. Everything on the first floor was a big piece of ice. I don’t remember there being an upstairs. I think there might have been a shell of the upstairs left, but I don’t think we could go up there. My bedroom was a mess. Since it was in the basement all of the water that got sprayed in the fire ended up in my bedroom. My textbooks were floating around in the mess and pretty much everything that had been on the floor was destroyed. The thing I will never forget is the smell. It stayed with us and on our things for quite a while. You hear stories on the news of fires ending much more tragically. We were so lucky.