Termyn8or
Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
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Om January 3rd, 1995 I did not get the choice. I got a phone call at work.
I got home speeding through suburbs but I did not run red lights or stop signs. Once home, when I walked into the bedroom I saw wide open spaces. The sight was breathtaking but it was framed by the ends of burnt timbers that used to comprise the walls, ceiling and roof. And it was cold.
If you look up the weather for Cleveland Ohio on that date, you see that we had single digit temperatures. Perfect time for a fire. I have watched Men die, I have destroyed people including myself, I have seen things and taken them in stride, but coming home to a burnt house really threw me. Please be careful when it comes to fire, you never ever want to go through this. I don't care if you are a cop and have seen it all in the dirty city, nothing can prepare you for this.
I went over my buddy J's house and found no quarter. Not only did they have two kids, they were having a sleepover. No room at the inn. I did get half drunk there though. I was not going all that fast when I sideswiped the guardrail in a borrowed truck, it only scratched it. Damn icy roads. I know I can't blame it on anyone but me, but it was minor and it was not another car or a person. Still it was not a good thing. So much for that.
I have been in situations that would make your skin crawl, but like I said nothing can prepare you for this. I stopped home to get some clothes to find them not quite as,,,,, fresh, they were ruined. So I grabbed my weed and my cellphone charger and went to Florida.
I did not just run away, the olman had already talked to the contractor and he is no dummy. What was to happen next is they were going to gut [most of] the place, wire, insulate all that.
So after a week of basking in sunlight and watching lizards crawl the walls, it was time to get back. It was time to be plannin da job. Yes, this contractor figured they would just tell us. They found out different. As it stands now that fire was the best thing that ever happened to this house.
Strangely, as cold as it had been, when I got back to Ohio it was unusually warm. A couple days later I was joking with the neighbors, that they owe me for bringing this weather on up from FLA. Of course it didn't last, this being Cleveland and all. I mean the most common saying, like everybody knows in Cleveland from the time they are about five is : If you don't like the weather, stick around. It will change.
It was so cold, like 3 degrees F not counting the wind chill factor, actually dangerous to go out, and then about a week and a half later people are out in Tshirts and shorts and shit. It was like fifty degrees when I got back. In January.
I had just taken off to FL, while I was going south my mind calmed down enough to think, I need a map. So I ran the tank of gas out and when I refilled I got a map. "Luckily" I was still north of route 10. I had been on I 71 and for whatever reason I wanted to take the coastal route. Actually it was pretty cool. Being my first drive down there I did not know. I made it to Columbia, SC with two rest stops to get like two hours sleep.
I got a pretty nice motel room. As I broke out my stash of mother nature I wondered if they could tell I was dong it and come and bust me. Then it came over me, if they can do that, I might as well be in jail, fuck it. Nothing happened. One of the most stressful days of my life melted away.
The next day I got to FLA hooked up with my buddy, and I am glad I did, he is dead now from a car wreck. Glad I got the time I got.
So was that a hijack ? I think it was fairly pertinent, if not let me unhijack.
At that time all I grabbed was the mother nature and the cellphone charger.
But then I am telling you what I did grab, not what I would grab.
Today, my PC is on the floor and I don't even know where the cover is. I would grab my harddrive. I might also grab the DVD ROM because it has not been set to a region. With the right software it can be region free.
So today I would grab my HD, mother nature. A pair of shoes and my coat. The rest of it can be burned as far as I am concerned. (oh no, not the poet in me coming out again)
Y'know I am so unmaterialistic that losing all this other shit would not bother me, at least not because of it's monetary value. Partly because it is worth very little. You see I am partial to older things. My TV is twenty years old this year, and I am happy with it. If there is no signal for it in a year, the joke is on them. I got the box that puts the PC screen on it, and XP Pro does a nice job with fullscreen mode on movies. So I don't fucking need them.
Oops, back to it. Yes one the THE MOST important things I would grab would be my hard drive. There is alot on there. Everything else is easily replaced.
And everybody in the fucking world cheats on this, don't try to bullshit me. When you talk to the insurance adjuster and you have a bunch of stuff that doesn't work, it somehow got miraculously revived right before the fire. And anything of any value that you lost within say the last three years.
Dishonest ? Yes. But about 80% of the people will do it, and do. And as I have found out, like they gave me seven grand for a few rooms of furniture et al. At the time the stuff I had was mostly junk, was functional, about it. But all that money, all said and done, did not make me whole. If it ever happens to you there comes a day when the monet runs out, and you suddenly remember something else you used to have. I mean this truthfully.
It actually balances out, the minor inflation scam you run on the insurance company is balanced out by the fact that you really did not remembedr everything. Months later you think of things you used to have. I know this because I have been through it. I did not screw them, if I had it to do again though I might. I also might not, if for no othrerr reason than to keep the karma happy, or something like that.
HAHAHAHA, funny, I just looked up and saw the pair of gloves my Mother got me for [un]Christmas. I guess I would take those.
Enough for now, I got my rabblerousing to do somewhere, perhaps IRC. We'll see.
Be well, and in case of fire grab the harddrive. And remind me not to get a fish tank, that has got to suck.
T
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RE: If there was a fire... - 
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