Never a Dull Moment

Let me introduce you to some of our newest friends.

We were just settling down to dinner when we realized that the sirens and flashing lights didn't continue down the road like they normally do. It seems that our next door neighbor's nativity set (which they still had in their backyard to provide warm shelter for some of their cats) caught on fire and burned a ten foot hole in their fence. Craziness, right?!

Well, the police came by to get the neighbor's telephone numbers (since, of course, they weren't home at the time) then a minute later, a fireman stopped by to ask if they could borrow some dishsoap. O . . . kaaay. Strange request, but we obliged. It seems they use soap to cut the surface tension of the water to ensure the pile of yuck doesn't ignite again, but they carry their soap in a 500 gallon tank which would be a bit, shall we say, excessive.

They came back with an empty bottle a couple minutes later while we were comforting our neighbor who had just come home to a fire truck and police cars in front of her home. They apologized for using it all and offered to buy us a replacement bottle, but we told them repeatedly that wasn't necessary.

While we were carrying over a couple fence panels (we just happened to have lying around for a future fence project we have planned) to cover the big gaping hole in their backyard fence, it seems the firemen were driving the rather large fire truck to the corner convenience store. Two minutes later they're coming back to our house, with a new bottle of dishsoap for us. Unfortunately, it wasn't a brand we could use (since we use our greywater to water our landscaping), but the sentiment was very kind. At the very least, our son got to go inside the fire truck and listen to their communication radio thingamajig, so he was happy.

I just hope he didn't offend our neighbors, the police, or the firemen when he repeatedly referred to the burned object as the "Jesus Set".