Half Past Awesome

Around 2:30 this morning,  a single car detached garage decided to catch on fire. The hows and the whys are the kinds of questions our fearless Fire Marshals are paid to answer; I am paid to keep the situation from escalating from “fire” to “raging inferno”. Along with Engine Co.2, the boys from Ladder Truck 2 LOVE a good house fire. Hell, that’s half the reason we want to work on the north side of Springburg. The other half is dealing with the mad-dog antics that many of our esteemed clientele engage in on a regular basis. I’m talking about our urban outdoorsmen who pass out in the alleys, brawl each other with the drunken vigor of fighting sloths and light their shopping carts on fire on a regular basis. It is in this kind of environment that we found ourselves facing a bread-and-butter burner.

We roll up and immediately hop out of the Truck to help the Engine boys put the liquid refreshment on the blazing garage. Not too big a thing, really. As we were working around the structure, I noticed that the garage wasn’t exactly being used as a place to store vehicles, but rather, to store the homeless in their off time. All the trappings necessary for a life on the streets were being consumed by fire as evidenced by the piss-stained couch going up in the center of it all. There was a random bale of hay, cardboard tables, endless alcoholic beverage containers, enough makeshift ashtrays filled up to have put one of the Marlboro Man’s kids through college and the ubiquitous nasty mattress, all turning to glowing embers before our eyes.

Just as the nozzle man was making his entry, I heard this weird high pitched cackle. What the bejeezus? I turned around to find a crazy-eyed wild man sitting on top of a doghouse, wearing a shirt as a kilt, and little else. I start to holler at him, through my air mask, so of course, we look like a pair of idiots yelling at each other. At least the news cameras were out on the street. When I got near enough to him to yank my mask and ask what in THE HELL he was doing, he just kept giggling and informed me that “I better get in there and get Granny.” WHAT? IS THERE SOMEONE IN THERE MISTER? “Yeah, Granny went in there to look for Elvis and say goodbye to God.” AGAIN, WHAT? AS IN WHAT THE F–K ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? The two firefighters continued to toss water at the situation and I informed them that there might be someone else in there. Great.

The boys knocked down the fire in short order and I drug kilt-dude out to the street and had him repeat his story to the head honchos on-scene, because this? is totally unbelievable if you didn’t witness it. He continued to rant and rave like a lunatic about Granny (who was across the street, by the way. On the sidewalk. In a lawn chair. At 2:30am) and Elvis,  then shuffled down the street until the cops caught up with him and hauled him off to the pokey (where, I was told, he ripped off his kilt/shirt combo at the booking desk and basked in his nude glory; that’ll make him most popular in lockup). By this time, we were waiting on the Marshal to arrive and do his thing, so we took the time to check over the scene, and let me tell you one thing: this place is going on the Top 15 list of nastiest residences in our entire town.

Picture this: cobwebs hanging from ceiling to about 5ft. high on the walls, all colored brown from dirt and wayward cigarette smoke. A toilet falling through the floor with water running in it continually. Five gallon buckets throughout the house in case you didn’t feel like making the trip to aforementioned leaning stool of nastiness (a well utilized option, I might add). Several years worth of cigarette butts crammed into every available container strewn about. Rotting food scattered to every corner of the joint. Computer screens and monitors in various locations with a wireless router sitting on an overturned shopping cart in the erstwhile “living” room. Trash up to your knees throughout smelling like, well, old decaying trash. The smell. Oh, the smell. God, for the smell. I’d rather take up residence in the burned out garage than try to live in this environment.

And you want to know what was in the middle of all of this nasty, filth ridden squalor? A working smoke detector. Despite living in conditions that could be likened to a 900 square foot dumpster, these folks had the sense of mind to at LEAST have a smoke alarm in their sweet abode. When you compare that to the number of people I see on my side of town not wearing (and not making their kids wear) seat belts, it almost lends some sanity to the situation. Never mind that Granny’s son was screaming at her rudely about how if someone didn’t let him back in the house he was gonna “whip (my) d–k out and take a big giant piss right here, right now” (true statement). Never mind that we were secretly hoping the police would drop a taser shot on him for being such a turd as to yell at his Granny, calling her EVERY rude name I can think of, none of which I can print. I can only hope they eventually arrest him, if for nothing more than being a disrespectful asshole; no one should talk to their granny like that.

Certainly not one savvy enough to have both a functioning smoke detector and a relationship with Elvis.

Uli Siren Songs, Tales of Misery

This past week saw a couple MORE folks I know getting laid off from their jobs. That sucks. Guys who were eligible to retire from the fire department have been jumping like rats off of the Titanic, worried what sort of shenanigans our politicians may try to attempt; these can be troubling times, indeed. There does, however, remain a perverse juxtaposition for a good many of the people facing an uncertain future: new opportunities. While I wouldn’t want to inflict the chaos of no income upon my family, the side of me that thrives on inconsistency looks upon these chances with a little envy. Of course, I also think that it would be great to live in an old caboose, so you have to take my mental capacity into account. That being said, I give you the weeks Raising Of The Pint Glass / Karate Chop To The Throat as well as the survey question for the Half Past Friday survey. Remember to send your wittiness to bluecayucos@gmail.com and check back in for the rankings. Till then, here’s to new horizons for all.

Raising Of The Pint Glass

1.) Old School Tradition. Recently, a battalion chief for our department had his “official” retirement party here at Station 2. Great. Cake, punch, some war stories, take care, have a good life. But then he went on to throw a shindig down at Springfield Brewing Co. a few weeks later. AND HE BOUGHT THE BEER. Nothing gets firefighters together like the prospect of free beer. I raise my glass to him for showing the class. Good luck, Chief!

2.) Alan Best. That is the real name of the character I call Nan, who happens to be my brother, and who also set a WORLD RECORD for his weight class in the bench press. 675lbs. is nothing to sneeze at. I salute you and your freaky muscles, brother. Congrats!

3.) Heathen #1. My oldest turned six years old yesterday, an event marked with an ungodly amount of Transformers toys, crack-dealer amounts of sugar and general mayhem. I am so proud of my little man; he’s a testament to great parenting….by his mother. I figure it is my job to teach him how to eat dirt, drink diesel and stay out of trouble. And when he’s old enough, I’ll take him down to my favorite watering hole and buy him a beer, so I can raise my glass to him.

Karate Chop To The Throat

1.) Work. I can’t quite justify retiring at 35, but that’s mostly because I would have to live under a bridge for the remainder of my days. I should have earned it the old fashioned way – inheritance style. That way, I could indulge the slacker lifestyle. Having worked up to this point in several knuckle-busting trades, I think I am qualified to appreciate laying back for a living.

2.) Hipster coffee server dude down at the place near the square. Look, I can see the disdain in your eyes when we walk in after shift at 7am and order up plain old coffee and begin our intense bull sessions. Your square eyeglasses and hipster-induced 70′s retro ad tee shirt just add to the fact that you look like a condescending ass. We may be just a bunch of aging blue collar bastards swilling your joe, but guess what? It provides you the means to get your faux-hawk styled and a new pair of fitted woman’s jeans, so quit giving me the hairy eyeball, or I will chop you to the throat.

3.) Bad Timing. I got it. Wish I didn’t, and I can’t shake it.

Half Past Friday Survey Question For July 17th

As a result of your meteoric rise to the top of your game, a big screen biopic of your life is in the works. Fortunately for you, YOU get to choose who plays the title character. Tell me who would play the role of you in this movie and why. Make it original and make ‘em funny. Email your answers to bluecayucos@gmail.com.   Tune in Friday for the results.

Uli Monday's Mud, Siren Songs Nan, the Heathens

Well, it would seem that the spam industry has managed to avoid these perilous financial times. How? How do they thrive? I was busy posing this question to the fish in the aquarium this morning, and it sent me into something of a tangent, followed by eight cups of coffee and a case of the shakes. I’ve read books on “permission marketing”, studied different methods of closing sales, even went on a few tirades against the car dealership guerrilla-scream-style ad pitching, and have come to the same conclusion each time: if you want to move a product or service, there is a segment of the population that will tolerate the invasion of their time, space and dignity. The rest of us just get vaguely annoyed by this reality; I secretly pray for dudes in purple robes and Nikes to take the salesmen with them on their next trip on a comet’s tail.

In the meantime, I can always change channels on the tube. I can judiciously avoid people in white shirts, black pants and skinny ties riding bicycles (I know Mormons on a mission, I do), and I can keep watching for comet sightings, but the one thing my spam filter on the computer seems intent on saving for my viewing pleasure is a fine selection of “people” who are interested in selling me “replica” watches. My mother, bless her heart, has a phobia about being punctual, and I’m beginning to wonder if it is a genetically inherited trait. As a kid, I could always count on being A MINIMUM of ten minutes late to whatever event required arrival in Mom’s burgundy Peugeot (not to mention the kind of ass-whipping riding in one of these cars invited). My Mom, to be fair, is an incredibly busy woman, and there was no problem that she couldn’t tackle with a Tab cola in one hand, a Virginia Slim 100 cigarette in the other and chewing on some gum. But she just might be a little late in tackling said problem, s’all.

As this whole “earning a living” thing and “parenting” thing have entered my life, I realize that I am running behind a lot as well. I chalk it up to training for the life of a superstar. Who wants to be the first at a party? Not Sean Connery, and not me. The only time I demand to be early is when going to a movie or a concert; it drives The Wife nuts that I am perfectly content to sit in a theater bar and get sloshed two hours before Alison Krauss even gets off her bus. And if I miss the previews of a movie, I might just skip that showing all together….it makes no sense, I know. In all other aspects, I get there when I can (exception #3: the firehouse, or responding to a call, in case you’re keeping track). And somehow, the spam hustlers know this. I don’t even get your typical ads for male enhancement, nobody is trying to sell me off-brand hair plugs and I only OCCASIONALLY get the message from my Nigerian prince buddy that I am in line to get, like, six million dollars if only I wire him two thousand. But the Replica Watch people, they know. They know me, apparently. Because even though I have no intention of ever clicking on their site, even though I’ve not purchased a watch since 2006 (not even a replica…it was the real deal. Real Swiss Army, that is), day after day, they are lurking in my inbox, ready to sell me that which I apparently need.

The whole thing is kind of triggering my paranoia switches. If they know I am chronically behind out there on the so-called Internet, what else do they know? I bet “they” know all kinds of things about me, which I’d rather keep to myself; only you and I know how much I loathe the concepts of Mega-Churches, McMansions and Maniacal Fearmongers. If this knowledge gets made known to “them”, I will have to triple the defenses against the Jim Bakkers, the strip-mall developers and the weird old dudes who call into talk radio blathering about the end times being signaled by the election of Obama. And who in the world has time for that?

I’m late as it is.

Uli Family DysFUNction, Siren Songs, Wandering Ponderings The Wife

This weeks Half Past Friday survey was a glance into what I have loosely titled The Hall of Shame.  The Hall consists of those whom you find attractive, but would be loathe to admit to in polite company. I threw out all the results that were either to contrary to the title (“Courtney Cox or David Hasselhoff“; who DOESN’T love The Hoff?) or just plain too vanilla (“my married co-worker”.……pffft, that’s minor league). No, I set the bar high (or low, depending on your view) and you didn’t disappoint. I did find a bit more response from the female half of readers, and I chalk this up to fact that most guys have little to no shame, and would admit being attracted to a fence post if there was enough liquor involved. So I delved a little deeper and posed the question around the firehouse, which will ALWAYS take the disgusting factor up a few notches. Most responses were not fit to print, although two made it into the list this week. Turns out firemen find beauty in many forms; this is likely the result of being penned up with 6-8 other men for long stretches. Wow. It sounds more and more like prison life every time I write it out in actual words. But I digress. Without further ado or prison references I present you with your own Hall of Shame in your words:

10. “The early 80′s, looks like she’s been on crack, Blondie always was a turn on for me.” (I believe my inbred amigo from college is referring to Deborah Harry here, but as he speaks almost EXACTLY as he writes, this sentence cracks me up. God, I miss that guy.)

9.  “Courtney Love…..hands down no question. She’s busted, run-through and a little crazy at times. Right up my alley. A+” (This was NOT from the Lyrical Jackass, surprisingly enough, but the responder ranked due to his truly capturing the spirit of the Hall of Shame. Well played.)

8. “Dennis Rodman….big, black, beautiful, bad boy, basketball player” (Funny, her husband is none of these things….wait, maybe that’s the point)

7. “My secret desire would definitely be Jack Nicholson. There’s just something to his attitude towards the things he does. I’m betting he’s very intellect (wtf? love, me). Who knows? I’m also attracted to the sunglasses. There is mystery hiding behind those. I would make myself like basketball just to be sitting next to him.” (okay, so this has stalker potential of, like 10.7 . I think I love this woman)

6. “Ok, I know this is going to make you think less of me…but Drew Carey is my secret crush! That man just does it for me!” (Is it the suit? The glasses? The excessive sweating that no doubt takes place while tying his shoes? Is it because he loves Ohio? Are you crazy?)

5. “The Amish.” (I like this: succinct, disgusting, gross generalization of an entire worshipping class, this has ALL the hallmarks of someone I would consider a friend….even if it is conditional)

4. “Steve Buscemi. I have no reasonable explanation” (Despite his phenomenal dental work, I was amazed to get this answer from several respondents, two of whom were high school classmates. Shameful, people. I love it)

3. “Cloris Leachman” (The fireman who answered this is so pathetically ashamed of his secret lust for her, that he called me AFTER I posed the question, so as not to reveal his perversions to a table full of coffee swilling, judgemental co-workers. Fool. I am going to expose him at the first opportunity)

2. “Willem Dafoe in Boondock Saints”

- this is worth taking a time out and noting, because this was the response of another fireMAN at our station. I told him, that I wanted to know his REAL secret shameful lust-object and he repeated the answer. The table came close to snorting coffee out their noses collectively, and he held his position, unlike the coward of response number 3. I told him, “but dude, you’re married”. He said that he was aware of his marital status, and that until I’d seen the movie for myself I was in no place to judge him. THIS is what makes station life awesome.

1. “A carny; like right there AT THE FAIR, behind a ride or something” (this was the response from a few years back from one of The Wife’s co-workers when I first stumbled upon the idea of a Hall of Shame. And she was serious as a heart attack in her answer. It made her hotter than ever in my eyes, and is the reason it holds the number one slot. We are a freaky lot out here in Missouri, of this I am sure.)

So there’s your top ten for the week. Mine? Oh yeah……a young Bette Midler. I am now going to wash the nauseous feeling out of my throat with gasoline and coffee…..I’ll talk to you soon!

Uli Half Past Friday, Siren Songs The Wife

So, as far as I can tell, everyone in the fire service has a vomitus trigger. We have the sympathy pukers, whom you can always see flying out of the back of the ambulance when the patient has tossed his or her cookies. There are also environmental hurlers, those who wade knee deep into a medical call only to find the patient sitting amongst the contents of several cat litter boxes, and begin to gag uncontrollably, resulting in (from my perspective) riotous results. Typically, we send in the newest member of the crew to deal with the crazed half-tonner wedged between the toilet seat and wall, just to see what sort of violent physical reaction we can witness. Firefighters, being as they are, will capitalize on ANY weakness, ESPECIALLY if we can get a co-worker to lose control of a weak stomach.  A classic firehouse example? The Lyrical Jackass is deathly terrified of feminine hygiene products, and can be made to dry heave if you utter the word “tampon” preceded by various descriptive adjectives.  We are an immature lot, no doubt.

My own debilitating scenario?  ANYTHING at all with regards to teeth, their breakage, oral hygiene, dentures and/or meth mouth. This most likely originated when I saw, as a rookie, a patient who unsuccessfully tried to cap himself with a .22 to the mouth. The result? One pissed off old man with a pie hole full of broken choppers. Riding the ambulance to the hospital, I was assigned the task of performing suction and never got past the hideous sounds he made as he spit out teeth like so many bloody Chiclets. I vividly remember how my stomach turned over and over on itself and it wasn’t but a few moments of this until I found my very own puke trigger; unfortunately, so did the ambulance crew and our irritated suicide attempter. Years later, every car wreck involving facial trauma reminds me of how, despite an ability to waltz through bodily fluids, human remains and other assorted disgusting things, I can’t stand to look at broken teeth, or worse, the ever-feared meth mouth.

You might well imagine that this presents a bit of a dilemma when it comes to my own oral hygiene. I am fairly religious about keeping the click-clacks meticulously clean. Visits to the dentist, however, are still a source of much anxiety, even routine cleanings. I recently found the perfect dentist, though, one who mocks me loudly as I preemptively writhe in agony moments after entering the waiting room. There are two things going in her favor. One, she is a she and as such, there are no over-sized hairy knuckles with which to contend. This is a definite plus. The second positive for her is that she is more than willing to dispense drugs to me during each visit in order to minimize my screaming. And, for the record, I AM a screamer. She did a minor filling on me the other day (the horror! A cavity?) and actually had the audacity to ask if I needed some “numbing” for such a minor procedure. I made one thing clear: if she was approaching me with an air-operated drill that operates at a pitch that can break glass, then she better have me doped up to the nines. At that point the assistant (a friend of mine) laughed at the big pansy in her chair and then strapped the nitrous oxide mask on me to smooth the rough edges of the unhinged lunatic in front of her. Shortly after the numbing solution and laughing gas began to take effect, the doc came at me with what looked to be the kind of needle with which you might anesthetize a horse. I tried my damnedest to not flail my legs about and pitch a fit, but I can’t really recall how it all went down; there’s a good chance I made what might be referred to as a “scene”.

The upshot of all this is that at no point, as far as I can remember, did I lose my breakfast. Of course, as I write this, my hands are all clammy and  I am getting a little uncomfortable. Maybe the doc NOT having knuckle hair helped; putting up my most macho front might have been beneficial as well, right? I have no doubt that the next medical call involving the removal of a patients dentures will have me back to gagging, but I think I am headed in the right direction. And as to the time when The Heathen’s baby teeth come out? I will do as any testosterone-fueled tough-guy fireman might: I will leave The Wife to deal with it, calmly head out to the shop and nonchalantly puke my guts out.

Uli Siren Songs, Tales of Misery the Heathens, The Wife

The call was routine, inasmuch as a 911 call for a potential stroke victim can be. The station tones came through right after lunch, and we rolled out in a cacophony of lights and sirens, me grinning from ear to ear as I watched the mad-dog soccer moms swerving all over trying to get out of the way. Being on the east side, calls for stroke patients were relatively common, what with the abundance of seniors living out their sunset years on the “nicer” side of town.

We roll up and a large lady in a pink sweater is waving her hands around in some sort of psychotic interpretive dance, flagging us down as though it is inevitable that we will somehow shoot right on past her home. The captain on the rig, nearing retirement and caring very little about any interpersonal interaction, promptly occupies himself with paperwork in the cab and staring at rocks in the driveway. My partner and I grab the medical gear and head towards the house. Mrs. Hysterical-In-Pink steers us away from the house and points us towards a large portable building in the back yard. As she places her hands on the door handle, she turns and looks at me and my partner and says, in an oddly calm voice, “You have to promise me not to freak out.”

What the hell did we do? Mentally, of course, we were freaking out. What was in this shed? Was Grandma chained to the floor and found dead? I look back at my partner and we’re both wondering if this is a situation where police presence might be a good idea. We both look back to find the captain kicking stones in the street and daydreaming about slaughtering bass on the lake. Too late now, I suppose, to turn and run. And, of course, I am curious as hell as to what she has going on in there.

She opens the doors to reveal the largest S&M sex torture chamber that one might be able to fathom, complete with a leather and studded cross in the center, whips, chains, saddles, video equipment, candles, a microwave oven, and a polyvinyl covered bed across the back. The entire room was painted black with chicken wire and insulation on the walls and a couple of window-unit air conditioners. There was even what looked to be some sort of five gallon pail filled with prophylactic devices. Apparently, one can’t be too safe in this kind of environment. In the center of this room are two very large women in an unflattering menagerie of skin tight leather outfits with one very skinny old man wearing little more than a pair of cutoff shorts. As we stumble in, jaws dropped and eyeballs the size of saucers, he points to the woman with purple spiked hair and says “She is exhibiting classic stroke symptoms with drooping on one side of her face and slurred speech patterns”. Okay, I’m thinking, is this guy a doctor, because that would make this already madcap scenario THAT MUCH BETTER!

Our patient looks up at me and says “I bet you ain’t never seen nothing like this before, have ya?” In this, she is absolutely correct. As assessment begins, I assure her that no worries, discretion is key, no one is the wiser. She then looks at me as though maybe I am the one with the condition, and proceeds to tell me how she LOVES this kind of thing, “Ain’t no shame in my game”, and that things just got a little out of hand, that’s all. In between stealing glances at weapons of sexual intimidation on the wall and attempting to get a blood pressure reading on a super-sized dominatrix, my mind was reeling. There is no way that anyone is gonna believe this story, that this is happening right in someones backyard, right in town, right in the middle of the workday. This is so awesome.

About this time our captain stumbles in and, seeing the air conditioners on the wall and not much else due to the incredible darkness of the dungeon, asks out loud if these people have a working smoke detector in this outbuilding. We ALL stop what we are doing, turn our heads (patient included) and start breaking out in small fits of incredulous laughter. About ten seconds later, as he is idly pushing a swinging chain back and forth, his eyeballs adjust, and any semblance of discretion flies right out the door as he blurts “Oh GOD! OH MY GOD! I GET IT! OH! OH! OH! What the HELL am I touching? CRAP! Boys, I’m gonna wait outside for the ambulance to get here!” He then shimmied out of there as though his backside was literally on fire.

Our patient then looks up at me and says “Discrete, huh?” At this point I shrug my shoulders. What can I say to that? She has a point. After returning to the station and taking a bleach based shower, the whole situation got me to thinking: we all have our own versions of a hidden S&M chamber in our life. For some folks like The Wife, it is a closet obsession with all things Star Wars. Not too many people know that I harbor a secret job fantasy of being a steam locomotive engineer or a touring member of the Drive By Truckers (a favorite band). One of my unhinged neighbors is sitting on over 1.3 million records (45′s only, thank you very much) and spends his free time cataloging and listening to them on one of his 13 jukeboxes. We all have our little escapist havens. For some it just happens to occur while wearing leather and participating in stroke-inducing rituals. Ain’t no shame.

Uli Siren Songs, Tales of Misery

People outside of the fire business seem to have an insatiable curiosity when it comes to this line of work. When folks find out that you’re a fireman, there is a predictable litany of questions that run the gamut from “What’s it like to face potential threat of death regularly?” to “What is it that you guys actually DO all day?” to one of my all-time favorites “Oh, no, you’re not one of those guys. Are you sleeping with my wife?” After nine years as a career firefighter, I’ve come up with a similarly predictable roll-call of answers, ranging from “You don’t think about death that much unless you’re the coroner” to “You have no idea how much effort it takes to keep the wheels of bureaucracy squeaking along” to “Yes I AM one of those guys, and no I am NOT currently sleeping with your wife. That would be Eddie.”

Like any industry, ours has its share of dirtbags, family men, sleazy political types and salt of the earth folks. People go into the fire service for an equally varied number of reasons: the schedule, the security, the retirement, the chance to behave like adolescents, breaking stuff for a living. There are those who try to sell you the whole “hero” notion, but any fireman worth his or her salt will drop a Bullshit Flag with extreme prejudice at the mere mention of that term. We’re trained to do a job; like any job, the shine fades after several years and you begin to think more about being a cog in the giant wheel of government and less about what it is you do for a living.

I got into the fire service circuitously, like many, and was drawn to the adrenaline rush of racing trucks, running into unknown corridors and working ten days out of the month. And, at a time when I was a (relatively) young, newly single guy with nothing but chaos, I could count on two things: the fact that my worthless dog had probably taken a dump on my porch sometime in the night and that my new-found family at the firehouse would be there for the citizens, and for me, every third day. Unpredictable emergencies became, ironically enough, my anchor. There was no feeling quite like riding backwards as a rookie on old Truck 1. Heading towards the unknown emergency, lighting up downtown in red and white, siren wailing, it always felt as though we were rushing to a party of sorts. The rush was amplified by the fact that  the hosts might well be fueled up meth-heads torching a crack den as a form of entertainment. Along the way I’ve had the chance to be a part of situations as diverse as crazy white trash attacking one another with ax handles and weedeaters to helping deliver a baby in a liquor store. I’ve experienced tremendous sorrow at the loss of life of innocent children and the overwhelming joy of shocking an old lady back into this life and the accompanying look on her husbands face when he realized perhaps he wasn’t going to have to say goodbye like this. I’ve become more jaded about those who choose to use 911 as an entitlement taxi service and yet developed a little more empathy towards those whose poor choices were influenced and guided by the crappy choices their own parents made.

Perhaps the cynicism comes with a combination of age and governmental employment. Like any adrenaline or junkie’s rush, it takes more and more these days to get the fix. Any more, I want to hear the dispatcher’s voice ratchet up a notch or two when describing heavy smoke conditions, multiple calls on a house fire and possible persons trapped before I can really feel a true high navigating Ladder Truck 2 through the city’s northside. Usually this seems to occur with greater frequency late at night or very, very early, depending on your own perspective. As we wordlessly gear up and contemplate the unknown ahead, a comforting sense of calm overtakes me. Together with my family of co-workers, our humor gets darker as a coping tool for the macabre, our senses get heightened as I flip on the lights and the old familiar Federal-Q siren begins to wind it’s way up and down, alerting  no one in particular to our presence. We’re on our way to make a bad situation a little better for someone. And in the chaotic bath of red and white lights  I remember why I love this job.

Uli Siren Songs

Each Thursday that the crew of Ladder Truck 2-B is on duty, we train with the Hazardous Materials Team down at Fire Station #12. This training lasts most of the day, and while there is always the threat of learning new and valuable techniques for dealing with spills, releases and the mayhem that makes up the world of HazMat, my capability to stay focused is pushed to its limits within moments of each class. I would wager that I have the attention span of a fly.

This week, our class topic was thus: Evidence Collection Techniques for Weapons of Mass Destruction Incidents. I even yawned while typing that last sentence. I can’t fault our instructors; both were well versed on the topic, comedic at times and tried their level best to make a terminally boring subject somewhat interesting.  And I coped in the only way I know how: liberal application of caffeine at every opportunity.

This usually entails a pot or two of coffee before the day really gets going and some more later on, just for good measure.  Combining the coffee with a distinct lack of sleep, I was already dancing close to a fit when all the caffeine came on board, three minutes into class. Despite the mad jitters that allow my mind to wander all over the map and think of new ways to make a subject entertaining, it wasn’t long before the need hit…….I had to ramp this rush up even further if I was to make it to lunch.

Enter my new nemesis: Chinese Rocket Fuel energy drink, chock full of enough really bad ingredients to gag a hyped up hyena. From what research I’ve done (read: very little), this drink may well have been either banned or the company has gone out of business. This would explain why you can buy, like, six for a dollar. And, firemen being the cheapsters they are, have figured out a way to hawk this junk out of their stations for a profit. They just lie in wait till some jonesing fool like me needs a fix to make it through training days.

The results were predictably awful.

One of the side effects of 278% of your RDA of Vitamin B6 is NOT an ability to focus, despite my attempts to shoot Clint Eastwood-style squints at the projected data stream. As we age, I am realizing the ability to multi-task is truly the realm of teenagers and vigilant lesser mammals who are constantly under the threat of predation. This is precisely why I can’t text for speed…..I actually spell out all of the words out of respect for the institution of spelling (see previous essay on said subject). But I digress.

I began to detect unique new powers as the effects of the Chinese Rocket Fuel began to take hold of my physical being. For one thing I could distinctly feel one eye wandering in a different direction, thereby allowing me to observe my comatose classmates while simultaneously keeping an eye on a slide show about handling rogue FBI CSI-types. This proved distracting, to say the least. My eyeballs actually began to hurt. I would need to approach this new talent with caution. As the lecture droned on, I also noticed that I had a new ability to tap my foot several thousand times without interruption. A twitch began to erupt from one side of my face and it took a moment of deep breathing to convince myself that, no, I wasn’t having a stroke; this is merely one of many “benefits” of loading up on this new elixir. I began shouting out answers to quiet questions and then affirming my correct response with a “HELL YES, I’M RIGHT!!” The instructors decided to break early for lunch, no doubt to begin planning an assault on my new-found HazMat brilliance. Paranoia may also be a side effect.

There is a very good reason (beyond legal boundaries) why I stay away from addictive mind-altering substances and this reason was highlighted with clarity as my eyebrows began to shoot off in different directions with each jarring turn my mind made. Some folks cannot handle the ride. I’m fine with that particular part; it’s the crash that tears me into a million pieces. That, and physically I can’t handle the train wreck I become as I get older. Only a select few, like Keith Richards, can actually survive killing themselves. What Chinese Rocket Fuel doesn’t tell you on the can is that while it may launch you into outer space for a short time, it most certainly does NOT come with a parachute for re-entry. And I dropped from orbit like a stone. Hours later I pulled myself out of the station by my fingers with no recollection of any events that may or may not have occurred during the previous span of time.

Moral of the story? It truly sucks getting older. That, and stay away from banned, retina-rattling energy drinks unless you happen to be Keith Richards.

Uli Siren Songs