More excitement!

Today...me and J went down to Pueblo's. Its a little Mexican place with great food and a cool atmosphere. We ate a perfect meal and were walking back to the car when I saw something that just didn't look right. I stopped J and made her look too.

"Holy shit!" she said as we both stood and stared.

In the parking lot, behind our truck, there was a minivan on fire. Flames were shooting from the hood and dancing across the windshield. Smoke was clogging the streets around us. We stayed back and watched while we waited, and waited, and waited for the fire trucks to show up. One of the guys that worked at Pueblo's walked by and said, "I can't believe the fire trucks aren't here yet. The station is behind that building."
He pointed to the building that was behind the lot where we were parked.

The cop was there though. Umm...in South Florida, the police carry fire extinguishers in their cars. I guess that cops up here don't. Because if he did have one, he could have put it out before it got so bad.

So...after about fifteen minutes, the fire department showed up. By this time, the entire front of the vehicle was completely engulfed. It was like watching a bloopers show. The fireman pulled the hoses from the truck and made a tangled mess. When they finally got to the front of the van, he turned on the hose and nothing happened. He followed the hose back and found that one of the connections was leaking. Now there is two more fire trucks and all of them were standing around watching these guys struggle with the hose. Finally, after the windshield melted and the interior began to catch fire, the guys started spraying it with the water. All the owner of the vehicle could do was stand there and watch. I felt bad for the guy.

When the flames were finally out, I walked up to the cop and asked if I could back our truck out of the lot. I figured that the further away our truck was from the firefighters, the better. He agreed to let me.
On the way home, J starts laughing. "I can't believe those people were driving by that. The flames were shooting out across the street."
"I still can't figure out why the cop didn't redirect traffic," I shrugged. At one point, a propane truck drove by it. The burning van was less than three feet from the passing traffic. "I can't believe it took so long for the fire trucks."
J laughed again. "I know. The fire department is really only fifty feet away from where the fire was."
A few months ago, I told J that I wanted to be a firefighter. Even if it was just volunteer. "See, I told you that I should join the fire department. I would have been there and had that out even if I had to jog to it. Hey, can you hand me my smokes?" I pointed to where they were.
"Uh, you wanna smoke after seeing that?"

A few minutes later, we were home. J's dad is home and J starts explaining the excitement. Then they both started looking at me like I had clown makeup on or something.
"What?" I asked.
Mick smiles and J starts shaking her head. "I'm staying away from you. The other night, you called me to tell me the woods were on fire and now, I take you to dinner and a van is on fire. Ten feet from our truck."
I put my hands in the air and swore it had nothing to do with me. But maybe...just maybe, its a sign that I should be a firefighter.