It was February 2nd 2002, also
known as Groundhog Day, and my parents had decided they wanted to go on a date
to the Temple .
All my other siblings were elsewhere; probably either spending the night
at friend’s houses or out on dates because it was a Saturday night. I was
the oldest at home with no plans and so I was put in charge of babysitting my
two younger siblings; Benjamin and Sepherah.
It was dark outside and we were
stuck inside so I decided to turn on the T.V. We never had anything
fancy, just basic TV and VHS's so our entertainment selection was limited.
As I flipped through the channels, pushing the buttons on the television
set because we didn't have a remote control, I happened upon what looked like a
funny movie. Groundhog Day with Bill Murray as the star was playing as a
holiday special. Benjamin and Sepherah were sitting down on one of the couches
as I watched the show and laughed at the humor it produced.
Recently I had started to learn how
to cook little dishes; chili cheese fries, tuna-chicken sandwiches, etc.
While watching the movie, Benjamin came up to me and asked if I would
make some chili cheese fries for him because he was hungry. They were a
treat so I thought he was just trying to get some of the good food, but he
wouldn't stop pestering me so I told him once the movie was over I would go and
cook some chili cheese fries.
We were all engrossed in the movie
or so I thought. I was seated directly in front of the TV and Benjamin
and Sepherah were seated on the other couch. Shortly after Benjamin asked
me to make the food, I started to smell something funny. I kept sniffing
and couldn't quite place the smell, but finally I placed it, SMOKE! I
turned and looked toward the hallway, which lead directly to the kitchen, and I
saw billows of smoke coming out of the kitchen on the top of the doorway.
Running towards the kitchen, I
started to yell and Sepherah and Benjamin to get out of the house. I
stood in the doorway to the kitchen and stared at the stove, our small sauce
pot sitting on the front burner with a torch of fire extending from the stove
to the ceiling and starting to cover a good portion of the rest of the kitchens
ceiling.
My very first thought, before
anything else was, 'I'm so grounded.' Getting grounded was not a common
punishment for our parents to give to us so I find it funny that I would think
of that first. Growing up, my mom had constantly performed different
kinds of drills with all of us children to make sure we would be prepared in
the event of a natural disaster. She would have us take positions in
places around the house that would be most secure in the event of an earthquake.
She would have a designated meeting place to get to when getting out of
the house in the event of a fire. She would even have us repeat to her
what we were supposed to do in the event of her biological mother showing up;
but that's another story completely.
As the slight bit of shock snapped
out of me, I reached to my right and grabbed the phone off of the table.
I ran to make sure Sepherah and Benjamin were out of the house and they
were; Sepherah off to the side crying and Benjamin on the front lawn holding
his head. I ran back inside because I wanted to see if it was something I
could handle or if I actually should dial 911. I knew how serious dialing
911 was and that I shouldn't do it unless it was an absolute emergency.
I stood taking in all the flames as
a piece of the ceiling fell on the shag rug that covered the kitchen floor and
the fire started to spread fast. I pulled the shag rug up over itself and
smothered the small bit of flame. With the phone still in hand and having
yet to dial 911, I ran to the bathroom. The adrenaline in my body was
taking over and unfortunately it was also messing with my logic. I
remember standing in the bathroom doorway looking for a hose and then saying to
myself, 'duh,' and running out of the house. Now there was a small sense
to my logic at the time because I had been thinking that the bathroom was a
main source of water; sink, toilet, bathtub, blah, blah, blah, give me a
break. I was a 14 year old girl doing
the best I could in a less than ideal situation.
Heading out of the house and the
phone still in hand, 911 still not dialed, I turned to the side of the house
and tried to turn on the hose, but in my panic, I failed to turn it in the
right direction.
That was it. I was done.
Realizing the situation was out of my hands I dialed 911.
“911 what’s your emergency?” said
the 911 operator. I had heard it dozens
of times on TV shows, but never in real life.
“MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE! MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE!” I yelled.
“Is everyone out of the house?”
said the calm female voice.
“OF COURSE EVERYONE IS OUT OF THE
HOUSE! WHAT DO YOU THINK I AM, AN
IDIOT?!”
“Calm down mam. It’s okay, calm down.”
I couldn’t believe she was telling
me to calm down. I don’t know why I
couldn’t believe it, it just seemed so stupid at the time. “CALM DOWN?!
CALM DOWN! YOU CALM DOWN! YOUR HOUSE ISN’T ON FIRE, IS IT?!
“Mam, I need your address.” The lady said in an exasperated voice.
It flowed from my mouth like my own
name as I told her to please hurry and as I finally started to cry.
Just then, my mother’s white Buick
pulled into the driveway and I ran full throttle to the car and plastered my
sopping face against the window and screamed at my mom, “THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE!”
My mom got out of the car and said,
“WHAT?” I repeated to her that the house
was on fire and the first thing she asked was where were Benjamin and
Sepherah. I pointed to a crying Sepherah
on the side lawn and a scared Benjamin on the front lawn, holding his head and
as I remember it, a slight smile on his face.
I told my mother that I had already
called 911 and held up the phone. I
jumped back on the phone and told the lady that my mom was there and set the
phone off to the side again. I’m sure
the dispatcher was frustrated that I wasn’t relaying information of what was
going on to her, but I had to talk to my mom.
As my mom ran towards the front
door, she started yelling at me to turn on the hose and I responded that it
didn’t work. She told me to turn it the
other way, and then realization hit that I had indeed turned it the wrong
way. She picked up the hose and at that
moment there was a single sprinkler head on it.
Just as she started to unscrew it the water came out in full force right
into her face. As my mother disappeared
inside, the full weight of everything that had just happened in the short 3
minutes started to sink in.
Very shortly after, my mother
emerged from the house for a breath of air.
As she did, she put her hands on her hips and smiled. Completely opposite of what most parents
would have said and reacted, she said, “Now what have we learned?”
My response? “Never leave Benjamin alone again.” As tears
coursed down my face and Ben stood guiltily off to the side. My mother ran back inside to try to put some
more water on the flames to contain them until the first responders arrived.
Over 10 minutes after I had called
911, the fire department finally showed up.
The firefighters went through the kitchen, soaking everything in it just
to make sure there were no underlying hot patches so the fire wouldn’t start
back up again. To clear the smoke, my
mom attempted to open the window over the sink, and unfortunately it had been
weakened by the fire and broke on her hand.
She suffered a slight cut, but otherwise was unharmed.
As the firefighters were making
sure that my mom and I were not suffering from shock or smoke inhalation, they
were going over the damages with my mom.
My mom, being thoroughly trained in emergency situations knew what they
were doing. She knew why they were
asking her such funny questions and knew that they couldn’t leave her until
they were absolutely certain that she was okay.
At this point, she got it in her head that she wanted to mess with them. She looked about for some obscure subject and
saw that the flames had gotten to a bag of Malt O’ Meal cheerios, also known as
‘Toastios.’ She exclaimed in
exasperation, “Darn! The fire got the
Cheerios.” And she watched as the two firefighters looked at each other and she
could tell from the looks on their faces that they were thinking, ‘yup, she’s
gone!’ After she had had her fun, she
said, “That’s okay! We can have
Toastios!” and the firefighters got a good laugh.
Sepherah, Benjamin and I were
standing out on the street by our neighbors and some of the fire trucks and I
had to keep explaining to everyone what happened. I found it frustrating how everyone kept
wanting to know what was going on and wouldn’t mind their own business.
It was decided that we would go
spend the night at my Uncle Ryan’s house for the night while the smoke cleared
out of the house. I remember lying down
on the ground when I started to cry, thinking about how it was all my
fault. I didn’t know how much damage had
happened and I had just gotten an electric guitar for my past birthday and was
worried that it had gotten ruined.
I don’t remember going to church
the next day, but that doesn’t mean that we didn’t. I do however remember my mom telling us that
we didn’t have to go to school if we didn’t want to. I remembered that I had a very important test
that was going to be held so I had to go.
Typically I would walk to the bus stop with my friend Beatriz, but I was
still staying at my Uncle’s house so I walked to the bus stop from there.
Sitting at school in Mr. Nelson’s class
I was still extremely melancholy about the whole situation. After taking the test I laid my head down on
my desk in an effort to cry without anyone seeing me. I was too exhausted to deal with the rest of
the day and just wanted to be left alone.
Just then my teacher came up to me and asked if everything was
alright. I told him what had happened
and he didn’t know why I had come to school.
He said someone’s house burning down was a pretty good excuse for
missing a test and he told me that I didn’t have to do anything else for the
rest of the day.
A few interesting things came out
of this event. While my mom was at the
temple she was sitting in a session when she suddenly got a urgent prompting to
go home right then and told my dad she had to go home. Due to that prompting, my mom probably saved
our house from going completely up in flames.
There was enough damage to the home that made it so we had to move out
within a few short days. Our friends
were moving from 6 doors down and they were nice enough to be willing to seller
finance my parents.
It had turned out that my wonderful
little brother, whom I wouldn’t trade for anything, had decided he wanted to do
a favor for me and get started on the chili cheese fries ahead of time while
the movie was still playing. He filled a
pot with oil and put it on the stove.
Along with all of the food directly above the stove surviving thanks to
a box of baking soda placed in the cupboards directly above the oven, the pot
survived and is still in use to this day.
No comments:
Post a Comment