Things Catching On Fire

[azurelunatic]

Via metaquotes: "The Parking Lot Seems to be on Fire"

Warnings for food/beverage/body strain apply. Work-safe, if your work can handle giggling.

Comments

Re: Things, Fire, etc.

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

Although the post in question illustrates a good use for ?style=mine. Red with a black background? Not the most readable...

Re: Things, Fire, etc.

[azurelunatic]

I'm so happy I have young eyes.

[azurelunatic]

Text of the thing archived in case of Badness Happening:

The Parking Lot Seems to be on Fire and Other Stories.

The universe does not appreciate it when I work weekends. At first, I
thought it was just Sundays upon which I was particularly cursed--it's
actually a running joke at my store that if I'm in on Sunday, the
police will end up involved, somehow. The first Sunday I worked, I
watched two men on our security cameras swiping dozens of DVDs quite
efficiently from our porn room--the police arrived less than a minute
after they strolled out and drove away. The next Sunday I ended up
working, I saw a nasty road rage incident involving the driver of the
car in front of me being punched repeatedly in the face by the driver
of the car ahead of him... I felt obliged to call the police once more.

Now, I normally
work on Saturday nights. It's our busiest shift of the week, so it
makes sense that the assistant manager and I man the store together,
usually with at least one other person. I showed up for work this
afternoon with no idea that I would be chatting with the 911 dispatcher
again. That is, after all, a Sunday sort of thing.

Not
five minutes after I arrived, a customer who had just left scared the
bejesus out of me by pounding on the glass by the exit door and
screaming something panicky. I rushed over to open the door to hear
what the hell she was yelling about and noticed smoke billowing across
the parking lot. Hmm, I thought. That's not... usual.
At first, the customer and I thought it was coming from one of the
cars, but we soon determined that a shrubbery was aflame. A shrubbery.
In one of the little median island-type things in the lot. Was on fire.
For no reason. In the middle of a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Now, the fire couldn't really go

anywhere. It was surrounded by cement, and no one was even parked
anywhere vaguely nearby. It's difficult to see why that really
constitutes an emergency, per se, but it's not like the fire department has a special number you can call just for stupid
fires. Maybe it should. I felt an acute need for such a phone number
today, someone I could call and just say, "Hey, if you guys have
nothing to do, no people to save, maybe you want to swing by and put
out this bush that's burning in our parking lot, get a little fresh
air, whatever. No rush."

Of course, I ended up talking to a 911 dispatcher yet again. The conversation went like this*:

Dispatch: 911, what is your emergency?
Me: Um, I'm calling to report a fire. A little fire, it's not really... big.
D: And where is the fire, what is your location? Is it where you are calling from?
Me: No, it's outside in the parking lot at (location). It's a bush.
D: I'm sorry?
Me: It's a bush, a bush is on fire. Out in the parking lot. I don't know why.

At
this point, I saw two of the strapping Italian fellows from the pizza
joint next door walking across the parking lot, still in their aprons,
with buckets of water. A random guy pulled his pickup truck over by the
fire, too, and got out, eyeing it up.

Me: Um, some guys are trying to put it out.
D: They're putting it out?
Me: Yeah, a couple of them have buckets of water, and one guy... is using mulch.
D: Mulch?
Me:

Yeah, he's... well, he is picking up handfuls of mulch and sort of...
dumping them on the bush. It's really kind of... stupid. The mulch is
catching fire, now, and kinda... falling all over the place.
D: Is the fire getting bigger?
Me: Sort of, but now some guys are stamping out the mulch and pouring the water... yes, that appears to be working.

(continued)

[azurelunatic]

Here is where I start laughing, and the dispatcher follows suit as we talk.

Me:
I'm thinking this is probably really not any kind of emergency, and I
am sorry I called. Very, very sorry. I hate to think that this is tying
up emergency resources. I think the pizza guys have put it out.
D: The pizza guys?
Me:
They had the buckets of water, and they stopped that moron--excuse me,
concerned bystander--from trying to 'smother' it with mulch. Should I
just hang up now?

My employee is leaning against the counter for
support and tears are actually running down her face from laughing so
hard. The dispatcher, still laughing with (at?) me, took my information
and ended the call.

It was about five minutes before the firemen
arrived. The impromptu pizza firefighting unit had gone back inside,
and the mulch moron had also left, shamed. No fire was to be had, but I
watched them carefully unroll the hose, thoroughly spray down the
already-sodden area, then roll their hose back up again. I know at
least one of them was laughing.

We all spent some time
speculating, this evening, as to what could have caused the fire to
start in the first place. Most likely, we think, it was an errant
cigarette or something. But it occurs to me that perhaps the whole
burning bush thing is not the way Jehovah should go about manifesting,
should he decide to do so.

At least, not in my parking lot.

*Trust
me when I say this is almost verbatim, because I had to listen to one
of my employees tell the story again and again and again, portraying me
on the telephone.

[azurelunatic]

http://metaquotes.livejournal.com/2904145.html