It's Only a Fire

The thirty-five year old boy ran down the outside stairs and banged on my shop door...."Hey, Stephen, help, help."

Needless to say yesterday wasn't a fun day. This building dates to 1949, it's solid construction of concrete block and timber and has withstood the test of time. Well, it had until this man-child moved in upstairs.

Above my shop are two apartments - a very large two bedroom, and a nice studio unit. The boy lives in the studio. He's thirty-five with the maturity of a sixteen year old child.

He continually pisses me off.

And, yesterday he damn near brought this building down with his reckless and slothful ways. He explained he'd crawled from his bed to find water under the closet door - the location of the hot water unit, he then heard 'weird sounds.' He smelled smoke. So, he went back to bed.

Him, "I thought it would clear up and go away..."

Really, he said those exact words.

As he dozed, the water heater went - snap, crackle, pop.

The last pop was the safety valve saving this boy's life. Its design worked very well. It also woke the kid. That's when he ran downstairs to fetch me. I asked was there a problem.

I swear to all that's holy he said, "It's only a fire." I ran upstairs to find a nice mess, and the thermostat on fire. Put it out. Flipped the breaker. Ran back downstairs and closed the water valve to his unit.

The small studio apartment, of course, was flooded. The Boy, "Man, this sure is a mess, who's gonna clean it?"

Certain gene pools should be issued expiration dates.

Stephen