Well, it was delicious in the sense of irony, not fine dining. But then y’all know by now that I live in an area where the definition of fine dining is a roadkill possum and a six-pack.
I was paged for a chimney fire at 1 AM, with my station being the assist. The address given in the page had the scene up near the state line, and the Hooterville (NC, not VA where Sean lives) station was the station in charge. I get to our station, and it’s just me and the chief… :dubious: :eek: Remember, we need a minimum of 4 to count as responding. I suit up, get in the pumper, and the chief and I go roaring off into the night. As we leave, my neighbor Nathan comes barreling in, so I know the aerial won’t be far behind.
When we get a couple miles north of Mayberry, we start hearing radio traffic that Hooterville couldn’t find the scene. They start backtracking on the road, and finally we hear they’re on scene. Only the actual location was about 6 miles south of where we were paged to. Hmmmm. I know that area, and The Felonious Trashpicker lives around there. [Delicious Irony]We roll up, and by golly, it’s The Felonious Trashpicker’s house.[/Delicious Irony]
For you MMP noobs, right after we moved here, I had TFT and a couple of buddies of his tear down a barn for me, and they could take anything of (scrap) value they found in the process (and there was A LOT of junk). When I had them come by, I didn’t know who they were, but Reggie the Farmer and Fred the Human Watchdog Neighbor both told me toot sweet that these guys had long histories of petty drug dealing and theft. I barred them from my property as a result.
Back to the story. TFT is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Last night, he built a roaring fire in his fireplace, and then decided to add one of those chemical chimney sweeping doohickies on top of the pyre. If you use a chemical sweeper, you use it all by it’s lonesome because of the heat and chemicals generated. The upshot was that while trying to clean his chimney, he set it on fire.
Two Hooterville guys did the heavy work. They got up on the roof and basically swept the chimney the old fashioned way. There were a dozen Hootervlle guys there, along with 5 of us, and out of that, 2 did the work. I spent an hour outside in the cold at 2 AM, finding creative ways to pick my butt… I managed to help carry and put away a ladder.
As an afterthought, the Hooterville guys looked in through the attic vent. The stack had creosote on the OUTSIDE, meaning his chimney leaks, and there was a 2 inch layer of creosote on the inside. A thermal scan showed it to be dangerously hot half an hour after they guys came down. On top of all that, it was falling apart. One of the swepers almost took a fall because he grabbed for a handhold and a brick came off in his hand.
We were talking about a pool on when we get called back because TFT finally burns his house down…
Time for a nap. It’s Saturday.
Hope the hangover ain’t too bad.