a car exploded outside of my office yesterday! not just outside of my office building, i'm talking about outside of my individual office window! there was just the tree (where the squirrels play and provide me much afternoon entertainment) between the car and my office window! crazy!
ok, ok - i may exaggerate a little bit. but let me start from the very beginning (a very good place to start)
so i'm sweltering in my office yesterday (apparently the ventilation system broke ... plus they had to turn off the air conditioning anyway b/c the government thinks it must make a good conservation example and does this by turning off the air conditioning, non-essential lighting and 25% of the elevators when there's a smog day... the a/c doesn't come back on until the interior temp hits 27 degrees or something like that. i'm usually ok with this, except that they didn't have the ventilation system on yesterday - so as a result i was light-headed, dizzy, hallucinating ... but this story did actually happen! i swear!) ok ... so back to the start...
i was sweltering in my office yesterday. there's a sudden commotion down the hall. a bunch of ppl are gathering in a co-workers office and making exclamations. i ignore it and continue with my reading. the excitement seems to die down and then one of the group walks by my office and says "you shoudl check out your window - there's a car on fire)
so i look ... there's flames! lots of flames! i pause for a minute - then i think, "MY GOD! WHAT IF THE GAS TANK EXPLODES!" so i grab my purse and my keys and hightail it out of my office. by this time, most everyone with an eastern exposure has seen the car on fire. some are still wanting to watch yet torn because, what if the thing explodes ... the whole wall could be taken out. so we start heading outside ... i glance at the windows behind me and see billowing black smoke. there are some small booms (the tires popping?) our director decided at this point in time that perhaps we should all evacuate - but then, one of the ppl who just couldn't keep their noses away from the window noted that all the excitement was over. the firemens had come, they spayed the waters and the fire was out. still ... there was shattered glass on the sidewalk and even some melted aluminum or something like that.
from there on out, i just had to deal with the toxic fumes that made their way into the stagnant office air.
such an odd day.
AND ... it wasn't even the only car fire i saw yesterday. when i was walking after work, i saw another burnt out car in a puddle of water with firemens milling about.
apparently it was just *that* hot out yesterday. i don't know how many more days i can handle with it feeling like it's over 40 degrees ...
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2 comments:
Oh my effing God! I saw a car blow up once, but it was a controlled environment. My brother is a fireman and part of their exercise training was to put out an automotive fire.
Did you know that over 90% of fire calls are automotive fires? And that the majority of those are arson? Apparently people think that burning their old junkers will get them tons of insurance payouts.
I blew up a car once! Ok so it didn't so much blow up as it did catch fire and burn to a crisp, but the end result was the same.
The firefighters did a good job of putting out the flames and generally destroying the car by ripping open doors and smashing windows and such, and even the cops weren't too bad once they ruled me out as a suspect...
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