![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
railentheProblem was, I was entirely too hyped up on what had happened to be able to focus on one thing at a time, and that included being able to write a damn thing.
The last time that I had a Saturday that was this exciting was last year, when the bus that I was on the way home from work on was being shot at at one point. Normally nothing else would be as exciting, but yesterday there was something that had me so wired that didn’t get any sleep until earlier today when my blood pressure dropped through the cellar and knocked me out.
I was cleaning a block of rooms on the second floor, moving as fast as I could manage it, when on the return from dumping linen down the linen chute, I sneeze once. Then twice.
I only sneeze out of nowhere when there’s a sudden appearance of an irritant where there was none before. I stop and give the air an experimental sniff: smoke. It smell like burning paper, but then again it kind of doesn’t.
Lemme preface this: I’ve got a fairly strong sense of smell. I can detect smoking in a non-smoking room from several yards away even with precautions (like damp towels beneath doors) on a still day. If a guest smells something, or a coworker suspects something, they call me. If I don’t smell it, it probably ain’t there. Anyway.
I test the air a few times before I go and call the front desk.
“Front desk.”
“Yeah, Theo—I smell smoke up here. I don’t know what kind it is but something up here is burning.”
(…I always fiat the names of my coworkers. If he reads this and finds out that I’ve fiated his name to Theo, y’see, he’s either going to laugh his ass off or give me a month’s supply of Jell-O to troll me. I can’t eat the stuff. Long story. I might tell it at one point. It’s not relevant today.)
“…do you know which room?”
“There’s only one it could be.”
“Well, let’s hope not. Knock on the door, announce ‘Housekeeping!’ and say that you wanted to see if everyone is all right—make it sound like you’ve been to the other rooms too.”
“Got it.”
I pantomime going to the other rooms before knocking on the last one. After three knocks, the door opens—and hits the chain hard. A small boy, about three, has answered the door. He’s stark naked, and looks up at me. I have just enough time to notice that he’s kind of adorable before the door closes hard. But I also notice the smell of burning paper. Or is plastic? I can’t tell. My next turn is to the phone.
“Front De—”
“Yeah, Theo, there’s definitely something burning up here—but the only answer was a kid. I don’t know if there’s anyone else in there, even though I knocked hard. I keep hearing the microwave going on and off.”
“Okay, I’ll send Jane and Laura up.”
“Thanks.”
It’s a minute later—literally sixty seconds—I’m convinced that these two know how to use Reverse Polarity or something; Jane’s armed with a clipboard, which she uses to knock. Laura mentions she’s not positive that she smells anything when--
*BANG BANG BANG.* “Housekeeping!”
The door opens, this time with an adult at the helm—and I’m knocked backwards. There is a faint blue haze in the doorway as she sticks her head out, as well as the smell of burning paper, plastic, metal, and something else that I can’t identify, but sticks in the airways like the scent of oiled burning leather.
“We need to check up on you—we’ve got reports of the smell of something burning.”
“There’s nothing burning—I don’t have a match or a lighter or anything…” she answers, seeming a bit disconnected.
Jane, Laura, and I all exchange “WAT?” faces. We can see the smoke. They can smell it. Hells, it’s making me woozy.
“Are you sure?” Laura’s eyebrow goes up.
“I really don’t smell anything.”
Laura and Jane look at me.
“Check the microwave,” I say.
“I honestly can’t smell anything.”
“Check…the microwave,” I repeat, holding my scrubs to my nose. It was damn near impossible to breathe.
The lady in the room opens the microwave--
Billowing clouds of bluish-black smoke erupt from the microwave oven as the door opens. Within seconds I’m ordered to pick up a bunch of cups and help start filling them. There is a pile of something inside of the microwave, smouldering and burning low inside the thing. Our goal is now to quench the fire in the box so that we can prevent the sprinklers from going off and flooding the second floor.
Without anything better to do, I open things and pull windows open. The second floor now smells like burning fabric, burning metal, hot glass, burning metal, and…burnt paper. The combination is positively noxious, and incredibly chemical. The place has to be vacated.
On the way out, we discover that the woman and the three-year-old—who we find out was the one who set the fire—were not the only the guests. There was also an 18-month-old in there.
As it turns out, the kid was the one who had started the fire: he’d put a pack of brand-new tube socks into the microwave and turned it on, several times, and ignited the socks that way. This wasn’t the first time that this kid had caused trouble; earlier that day, the kid had been spotted running through the halls—again, stark naked—waving a twenty-dollar bill around. The mother had no idea, and had slept through it. She’d admitted to being at least partially high according to the supervisors at that time, and said she’d do something about the kid’s running around. The chain had served that purpose—but instead, he’d apparently decided to see what happens when you take cotton-poly-spandex tube socks and heat them up on the ‘baked potato’ setting on a microwave.
We put out the fire; the microwave—burnt, warped, too hot to remove from the premises for an hour after the incident, and with what looked like bullet-holes through it from the intense heat—was a total loss. The room itself will be off the market for a long time after that. The room’s guest, proven several times to be negligent and now a clear danger to the well-being of others, had to be evicted. I had to watch, make sure that the woman did nothing untoward to the children as she left. For the rest of the day, my co-workers gave me the ‘big damn heroes’ treatment; it’s continued through today.
As I said, Saturdays usually aren’t so exciting. But I gotta admit, I haven’t felt that alive in ages. I actually accomplished something for once. And that’s saying something.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Whoa! O.o
Date: 2012-01-16 06:11 pm (UTC)ON AN UNRELATED NOTE--HERE YOUR EXP AND LOOT REWARD!
http://sweetsavoryplanet.blogspot.com/2011/01/pomegranate-cinnamon-rolls.html
RANDOM 'KIDS BEHAVE LIKE THIS' RAMBLE
Date: 2012-01-16 06:37 pm (UTC)This is where parental influence is a must; parents have to be strict and instruct their children to register things as "Dangerous", "Rude", "Kind" etc so that the children will know how to behave around them since they're not ready to work out the reasons why just yet. Whilst children can work things out on their own, it's usually not without experiencing it first hand (so a child will learn not to put their hands on hot surfaces after getting burned) and of course some of these things such as getting hit by a car by crossing the street at the wrong time simply cannot be installed that way. This kid probably never had his parents say "Don't touch that, it's dangerous!" or "Don't do that, it's naughty!" so as far as he knew he wasn't doing anything wrong since he never had any information to contradict this.
Little children aren't stupid...they're just still not ready to think for themselves yet. This is where the responsibility falls on the parent to teach them how the world works; the children will figure out the reasons later but they need the rules installed ASAP so that they don't cause chaos in the meantime.
THIS IS ME AGREEING WITH THE RAMBLE AND ADDING TO IT.
Date: 2012-01-17 12:39 am (UTC)Earlier in the day when my supervisor spotted the kid running around naked with that $20—she said she'd go to get him and take care of it and left the room. WITH AN UNATTENDED BABY SITTING ON THE BED. She spotted her, turned her back around, and ordered her to get the baby before taking so much as another step forward.
Yes, my supervisor is a badass.
GO SUPERVISOR!
Date: 2012-01-17 01:06 am (UTC)One of my berserk buttons is irresponsible adults. I know small kids can be incredibly frustrating and require a lot of work but they can't help it: they're kids. The main reason I have lost all respect for my uncle (besides the fact that he mucked up my grandmother's probate and has possibly cheated me out of several thousand pounds of my inheritance) is that he won't even look after his own grandchildren; his needs come first. If Macaroon went around like a mini-stripper then the man would just keep reading the paper or watching TV like it wasn't his problem. I do my best to try and keep my niece, nephew and little cousins disciplined when I'm looking after them because they have to learn that bad behavior is not right and as long as I'm an influential adult in their lives and someone looking after them, it is my responsibility to make sure they behave themselves. Sure they're not my kids but they still need to be taught just like all other kids and I'd rather they grew up learning it's NOT okay to run wild when your parents aren't around (even if it is) than thought of me as that fun person who let them run amok. It's their future and I'll be damned if I help screw it up.
*clapclapclap*
Date: 2012-01-17 01:11 am (UTC)Meanwhile, MOAR URABOKU.
SAKURAI IS BRINGING SMEXY BACK
Date: 2012-01-17 01:23 am (UTC)I might give it another shot once I'm done writing up a bit more of my FFIX geekiness! (Better check to see if Episode 2 of "The Daily Lives of Highschool Boys" is up yet while I'm at it...)
YOU FOLLOW THAT TIMELINE!
Date: 2012-01-17 01:28 am (UTC)(The good doctor is INCREDIBLY DISTRACTING even when he has all of two lines in a scene. And it seems like every time he shows up he's one degree hotter.)
TECHNICALLY I FAILED TO MEET THE DEADLINE FOR THE 16TH BUT I STILL PLAYED ANYWAY
Date: 2012-01-17 01:33 am (UTC)(It's Ken Narita. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT!?)
WELL IT'S STILL THE 16TH HERE! I'M MAKING A HOUSERULES JUDGEMENT
Date: 2012-01-17 01:40 am (UTC)YAH, I THINK I'LL CHEAT WITH THAT. I'VE GOT ENOUGH TIME TO REACH THE WORLD MAP BEFORE IT ENDS
Date: 2012-01-17 01:48 am (UTC)IN THAT CASE YOU HAVE A LITTLE OVER FOUR HOURS OF THE 16TH LEFT.
Date: 2012-01-17 01:54 am (UTC)Is it totally bad that I see Shusei and Hotsuma having a total "Yes, dear" dynamic? Even though he starts off seeming so very tame, Ep. 12 had him take SUCH a level in badass. And he seemed to be the one in charge in that fight. I mean damn.
SWEET!
Date: 2012-01-17 02:07 am (UTC)I understand; I only recently began to get into IDing seiyuu who weren't in Sailor Moon/Yu Yu Hakusho/Yu-Gi-Oh/Evangelion/FF. Hell I still have trouble recognizing their voices sometimes. (Ishida, Morikawa, Hoshi, Midorikawa, Hayashibara, Sakurai, Paku and several others I can usually identify on voice alone but sometimes I get those wrong, especially if they're working alongside someone with a similar voice type.) Before then I did role assosciation so I would look at the DFF cast list and go "Oh hey, it's Mousse, Fiore, that transvestite hero from Princess Princess, someone I don't know, that plain nice guy from Princes Princess, someone I don't know, Misaki-sensei, Itachi, Edward Elric and Ichigo Kurosaki! And they're fighting Major Armstrong, Daley, Ranma's Mom, Chairman Kaga, the Count of Cagliostro, Kuwabara, Jounouchi, Slan, Fisheye and Pippin!"
NOT AT ALL.
I LOVE THE BATSHIT ROLE ASSOCIATION.
Date: 2012-01-17 02:13 am (UTC)And my growing bank of voice memory means that I just had an "....oh fuck" moment of realization.
I WANNA WRITE THEM NOW LIKE WHOA. JUST BECAUSE IT'S HILARIOUS.
AND IN A 'PREVIEW' SEGMENT: APPARENTLY THEY BUY MATCHING PAJAMAS.
MATCHING PAJAMAS, TOFF. MATCHING PAJAMAS.
EDIT: I OBVIOUSLY DON'T MEAN IT HAPPENS IN EPISODE BUT IT HAPPENS IN THE VOICEOVER INSTEAD OF AN EXPLANATION BUT YOU PROBABLY ALREADY KNEW WHAT I MEANT LOL I FAIL.
Hotsuma justifies it by saying that they get 20% off for buying two pairs.
THIS DOESN'T EXPLAIN THE MATCHING PILLOWS.
It makes Saiyuki so much more fun when you think WoL, Laguna, Kuja and Bartz having a roadtrip!
Date: 2012-01-17 02:21 am (UTC)ALSO LUKA BEING OBSESSED WITH MODERN TECHNOLOGY MAKES HIM MUCH MORE INTERESTING. PROBABLY BECAUSE HE'S SUCH A DORK ABOUT IT.
LOLOL. I NEED MORE THAN JUST THE FIRST DVD VOLUME OF THAT.
Date: 2012-01-17 02:27 am (UTC)Yuki: Hm?
Luka: Melon bread.
Yuki: Melon bread?!
I KINDA WANT TO TURN HIM LOOSE IN AN ELECTRONICS STORE JUST TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS.
OR EVEN A HARDWARE STORE.
Luka: Look, Yuki. With this I can trim two shrubs at once!
Yuki: I...didn't know that was so important.
Luka: It is. ^_^
I THINK I JUST GAINED A LEVEL.
Date: 2012-01-17 12:30 am (UTC)AND FOOD IS NEVER UNRELATED. THOSE LOOK EPIC.
*insert victory fanfare*
Date: 2012-01-17 12:46 am (UTC)ALSO I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT LIKE THOSE
*places talent points in the DPS talent tree*
Date: 2012-01-17 12:53 am (UTC)