It was late afternoon the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I was looking forward to a nice long weekend with family and friends. I had recently moved to another city and was just starting to get settled into my second property management position while feverishly attempting to purge my memory of the surreal events of the previous two years in the Cuckoo’s Nest (a pet name for the first property I managed). Then, the phone rang. It wasn’t a new phone and I had heard it ring hundreds of times before. But, for some reason, you can always tell by the “sound” of the ring when the person on the other end is going to crap all over your day. I picked it up anyway…but it took me nearly five rings to muster up the energy.
“Hello, this is Lanny”, I said. I was just in time to hear a voice trailing away from the phone saying, “No one’s there, let’s break’em down!”. This, of course, alarmed me. “HELLO!!! HELLO!!!” I screamed into the phone. The voice came back, “Wait a minute guys. I’ve got someone. This is Lt. Crane from the Fire Department. Who am I speaking with.” “This is Lanny Lord.” I said. “What’s the problem?” Lt. Crane said, “Well sir, your building has a great deal of smoke coming out of the third floor and we can’t determine the source. We can’t reach the manager and unless your tenants get home pretty quick, we’re going to have to start breaking these apartment doors down.” Lovely….just lovely.
I had to think. The Cuckoo’s Nest was a good twenty minutes away with no traffic. It was now around 4:00pm the day before Thanksgiving – I dropped my arms to my sides, slumped my shoulders, tilted my head back, looked toward the heavens and yelled, “OH, COME ON! GIVE ME A BREAK!” Lt. Crane’s voice brought me back from my brief temper tantrum, “Excuse me?” “Sorry about that, I was talking to someone else.” I said. “Please, don’t knock down any doors. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” I pleaded. “O.K. Buddy.” He said, “But if I don’t see you in exactly fifteen minutes, we’re breaking down doors.” I dropped the phone and ran out the door. How the hell was I going to make it there in fifteen minutes?
As I ran out the door I realized I had not yet stored my early 70′s muscle car for the winter. “THANK YOU!” I yelled skyward as I ran to the garage (my neighbors always knew I was weird – I was just confirming their fears). I jumped in my car, fired it up and squealed out of the driveway. WOOOO WHOOOO!!! Cart Blanch to drive like a complete idiot!!! Come stop me now coppers…if you can catch me!!!! I was flying in an out of traffic like a drunk Mario Andretti just hoping an officer of the law would pull me over and ask, “Where’s the fire?” And I could tell him! “At my building!!! Follow me…and try to keep up!!!” No such luck. Not a police officer in sight. Oh well. But, I DID receive quite a few friendly hand gestures from fellow rush hour motorists as I weaved in an out of traffic at break neck speed. Everyone is always so happy around the holidays. Don’t you think?
After fourteen minutes of white knuckle, dumb luck driving I screeched to a halt in front of the building. Yes indeed, there was A LOT of of black smoke coming out of the third floor. I ran by a few firefighters looking up at the front of the building and, with building keys in hand, I flew up the stairs and came face to face with at least a dozen VERY disappointed firefighters. When they realized they weren’t going to be able to knock things down and break stuff their faces practically oozed off their skulls and down the front of their reflective jackets. A few of the guys actually shuffled off to their fire trucks, dragging their axes behind them like a little league team on the losing end of a double header.
The rest of the firefighters however, were very enthusiastic about finding the fire…kind of like a flock of hummingbirds jacked up on caffeine. Looking out the window I noticed that the firefighters I passed on my way in had gone to the back of the building and were now heading back to the front of the building. I turned to one of the firefighters and asked, “What are the guys outside doing?” He furled his brow and replied, “It’s the weirdest thing. When we drove up, the smoke was coming out of the front of the building. Then it stopped, and was coming out of the back of the building. And it just keeps switching from front to back. Every time the guys go to the back it switches to the front, and vice versa. We can’t find the source and no one seems to be home.” Then I asked what seemed to be the obvious question, “Why don’t some of your guys stay in the front and the rest of the guys go to the back?” “Hey, that’s a good idea.” He said. So, that’s what they did.
The guys in the front and the guys in the back now reported the smoke had stopped completely. But now we were beginning to see smoke in the hallway, and it was coming from under the door of one particular apartment. Lt. Crane asked me for the keys, opened the door and was blasted by a cloud of soot black smoke that was so thick you couldn’t see the end of your nose. “@%$#!!!! This is it guys!” Lt. Crane yelled. I’m glad he told the rest of the guys – they may not have noticed him disappearing into the bellowing black wall of smoke. Three firefighters followed their fearless leader into the black abyss. “Is anyone in here?” They yelled. No answer. One firefighter found the source – the oven and range hood, as well as part of the cabinets, were on fire. The fire was quickly doused and another firefighter made his way over to the window to air out the apartment. That’s when we heard him yell, “I’ve got someone!” It was the lady who lived in the apartment. She was hiding behind the curtains trying to breath out of a window she had opened just a crack. ”What the hell are you doing? How come you didn’t answer us?” The firefighter asked. No response.
When we finally pieced the story together it went something like this: Evidently, Ms. Heduperbut decided to test her Thanksgiving culinary skills for the very first time by cooking a very large turkey in a very small oven. For some reason she scheduled this Martha Stewart journey a day early and immediately after working a double shift. The warm apartment made her sleepy and she fell asleep on the couch. A few hours later she woke up coughing and crawled to the living room window. She opened the window to let the smoke out. This got the attention of the local fire department which, of course, was directly across the street. A few firefighters went over to investigate. The tenant saw the firefighters and became embarrassed so she closed the window. However, she still wanted to get the smoke out of the apartment, so she ran to the bathroom to turn on the vent fan and, you guessed it, the bath fan vented out the back of the building. When the tenant saw the firefighters run to the back of the building she turned off the bath fan and opened the living room window. Thus creating the gopher brigade who spent the next thirty minutes running from the front of the building to the back. When the tenant realized the gopher brigade was splitting into two groups she did the only thing she could think of – closed her eyes, held her breath and hoped they’d go away.
So, to recap this little story – I left the nest, heard a Crane call, looked up to the sky, flew back to the nest, was flipped the bird (many times), and was swarmed by hummingbirds all because of a bird brain torching a turkey!
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!
mrlandlord
