Fire!!

So this is life. How quaint. I was so relieved to find a new roommate for our huge house. Its been months since my little sister left, and the bite of paying full rent ourselves has been weighing terribly. Not to mention my 'other' roommooch who now has until the end of June to move out. I got really tired of her living off of us, so like I said, I was SO relieved when we found a new roommate. It was relief that ended abruptly.

My wonderful new roommate turned out to be very unreliable and the kind of person who moves about constantly. It seemed pretty clear to me, almost as soon as she moved in, that she runs away from life. She had big plans to come here, get a job, finish schooling. Then almost immediately she started talking about going back to the island, or maybe to Penticton, or possibly Alberta. She finally settled on Banf, without even consulting her boyfriend, who happens to be a very good friend of mine which is how I met her. So he calls up to tell her he almost has all of their stuff in order and will be joining her here in 10 days, she then informs him that she has decided to move on. Of course he decides to make the 10 days shorten into 2 days... then tomorrow, seeing as she won't wait for him. At this point I really begin to wonder about his taste in women.

So the next day he shows up... after 11pm at which point I am already sleeping because I have to get up at 7am to take my son to school the next morning. Well the next morning I get woken up at 6:30am to sounds of crashing and screaming. Being a mother it does not take more then a couple of seconds for me to be out of bed and into my robe.

When I open the door into the hallway I am immediately confused by what I see. There is he and she running around in their skivvies in the hallway. At first I thought maybe I had interrupted some weird sexual game, until I noticed the smoke. I walk out of my room quickly and say: "What's going on?" Then I get far enough into the hallway to see their room filled with black smoke and dark orange flames on the floor at the far end of the room.

My question seemed to snap him out of the confusion he was running around in and he grabs a blanket on the floor and runs back into the room muttering "I've got to put it out." My first response is to run into the bathroom and start soaking a towel. I come back out with my soaking wet towel, realizing how much of the toxic black smoke is pouring out into the rest of the house. I go towards the room and I cannot see anything except for him on the floor beating at the flames. It does not take much and he's got the fire out, but the amount of smoke is overwhelming and I run into the room to open the window. It is too smoky and so I have to go back out and get my wet towel, covering my nose and mouth I go back in and fight to get the window open before both of us rush back out of the room to close the door and get some air.

Next I have to go into my sons room and get him dressed enough to get out of the house. When I tell him that there was a fire he says "Oh Cool!" in classic 7 year old fashion. We all beat it down the stairs and I wake up Who, who happens to be sleeping on the couch. Everyone up and out of the house. That's when we notice that he got burnt putting out the fire. Because he did not stop to wet the blanket and just used his hands... thats what fear and panic do to you.

What had happened was my friend, in true hippie fashion, fell asleep with a candle burning. The absolute idiotic thing about that, beyond leaving a candle burning, is that he left it burning on my sons old plastic desk that we had stored in that room. The whole flat part of the desk was melted down to the burnt carpet, which in turn started a plastic art case full of crayons on fire as well. Who knows how long they were asleep in the poisonous fumes, I guess its lucky for all of us that they even woke up at all.

So the next step was to rush him to the hospital with melted plastic burnt onto his hand. He handled the pain well, although his face was red as a tomato, and I know it must have been excruciating. All the way there they both kept apologizing profusely, which was good and all, but its just empty words that change nothing. I said to him; "Look I know you feel bad, but really shit happens and you will just have to help us fix it." He agreed.

Later that day they came back from the hospital, his puffy, white sausage-like fingers bandaged up good and they took a one over of the room. He cut out the burnt part of the carpet, about a square of 3 feet by 2 feet, before I told him he really should just take it easy for the rest of the day. She made a sorry-ass attempt at cleaning the walls (or should I say one wall) with a mop, which really only succeeded in smearing black soot around. To top it all off, she got the money she had been waiting a week for that day, and instead of offering any at all for her staying here, or for any damages, they knocked on my door at about 10:30pm and told me they were heading off to Banf. They said they would call and would pay for the cost of fixing the room when we knew how much it would be. I was so tired and shocked that I just stood there ready to knock the shit out of both of them. I said something like: "You're leaving NOW?"

I guess I should have stopped them, but I was not in my right mind, and I know they took advantage of that. My love has not been home yet since all this has happened, and there is no phone where he is so I could not let him know. The guy in this scenario, with the burnt hand who I am trying not to name, works for my boyfriend... So I know he will have to deal with his wrath eventually. Now Who and I are cleaning the room. I want to have it done as much as I can before my love comes home, to soften the blow I guess. Also Who is going to move into that room, once it's done, thank fuckin god. At least she is reliable and trustworthy. What a crazy ride.