five alarm fire

It just gets better and better around here.

I woke up to the sound of rain gently falling outside. This is usually a most welcome sound, but this morning, all I could think was "My LSH is stuck in the woods with eleventy-million 7th graders, and all of the activities are outdoors. He is going to kill me for talking him into this."

My second thought was "Oh crap. I am helper mom today at Terzo's preschool co-op, and we are supposed to be celebrating his birthday." In my defense, it is not actually his birthday today (although he was a little confused), it is just the last day of school before his birthday during school break next week.

Dunkin' Donuts to the rescue again. After feeding farm animals, making lunch for Secondo, making coffee for workers, wiping down wet dogs, etc., I tore out the door to grab a few munchkins before heading to my helper mom duties. Just before I was due to report for school, I dimly realized that I had forgotten my cell phone at home. I didn't have time to run back for it, and I blithely thought along the lines of "I can live without it for 2.5 hours, right?"

Wrong.

As it so happens, about 45 minutes after I left the house, the painters were busy sanding away... and set off the smoke alarm. Not a big deal, except that our smoke alarm is connected to our security system.

They tried calling our house, but no one was home.

They tried calling my LSH, but his cell phone did not connect in the wilderness.

They tried calling my cell phone, and you know where that was.

And so they called out the fire company and state police.

About 30 minutes into my helper mom duties, the school received a call from my LSH's office manager. She was tracked down by the guy driving the fire truck (sometimes it helps to live in a small town) and she knew where I was. In his panic, my LSH had forgotten. I tore out of the school to head home. I knew I was in trouble when I passed the fire company's tanker truck, on its way back to the station.

Sure enough, the fire truck plus two state troopers were in my driveway, waiting for my arrival. The poor painters were stuck in the office, with the alarm wailing and Charlie barking away in the house. I spent the next 30 minutes apologizing non-stop: to the firemen, to the police, to the painters, to my LSH, to Charlie, to the painters again, to the security company, to the office manager (who, with her daughter, took over for me as helper mom). I don't think I will need to apologize to Terzo as he is no doubt really glad to have his gorgeous 18yo babysitter suddenly appear out of nowhere and take over for me. I only took a break from apologizing to take a quick shot of the fire truck making a K-turn in our driveway.

The disadvantage of living in a small town is that I will never, ever live this down. And should the memories of the town residents dim, you can be sure that my LSH's will not.

Apologies again, Mr. Weekend Farmer. Maybe I'll get to that shearing post tomorrow. Right now, I am going to go lie down with a cool compress on my forehead.