
I had to stop for cigarettes on the way home this evening. I did so at a little tobacco shop near the grocery store, and when I came out I noticed a car with what looked like an awful lot of steam billowing out from under the hood.
Oh, I thought, busted hose or something. Gee, that sucks.
As I started to put my helmet back on, I noticed two things:
1. The distinct smell of smoke, and
2. Flaming shit dripping out from under somewhere on the front end.
Hey, I thought, I think that car just might be on fire--
And then the horn went off in one long continuous WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK. I hoped that was just the electrical system going apeshit and firing the horn off or something and not someone trapped behind the wheel trying to get help.
I went back into the tobacco shop and repeated the "hey, this car's on fire" thing aloud. Now there was a nice crowd gathered--at a safe distance--and some of the rubberneckers had cell phones out. Okay, surely someone was calling 911.
Fortunately, the car was empty, as I saw a minute later.
Now some of the smoke was turning black and taking on the distinct bouquet of Goodyear flambe'. Lots of burning shit was now dripping out from the front end. A guy came out with a fire extinguisher and started shooting through the grille as I stood in the tobacco shop with my nose pressed to the window thinking don't pop the hood don't pop the hood DON'T POP THE HOOD.
He didn't pop the hood; at least he was that intelligent. Eventually, he gave up and got the hell out of the way.
...where the hell was the fire department?
The tobacco shop guy and I asked each other this. I looked at the crowd and saw a couple more cell phones. The tobacco shop guy said "the hell with this" and called 911 himself. The 911 operator assured him that they'd already been called and the fire department was en route. Satisfied with that, we watched another guy try and fail to extinguish the poor flaming car. He too got the hell out of the way, and just in time because something really caught then, and now instead of just the occasional flame licking out of the grille and the dripping burning shit, there was some serious fuckin' conflagration coming out from under the hood. But hey, the fire department was on the way, everything was under control.
Well, that was all well and good, but now the car was no longer simply on fire, it was on Firaga and it'd been no less than five minutes since Tobacco Shop Guy's 911 call and the nearest fire station was all of FIVE BLOCKS AWAY and all I could think was oh shit she's gonna blow WHERE THE FUCK IS THE FIRE DEPARTMENT
I decided maybe I should back away from the windows. Tobacco Shop guy pulled the burglar-bar-screen thing out a little and hid behind it, and he was not entirely joking.
Tobacco Shop Guy was picking up the phone to call 911 again when I heard the sirens. Two cop cars and a fire truck arrived, lights a-blazin'. A herd of firefighters poured off the fire truck, stood there gawking at the car for a minute, and then started hosing the car down. Now that was steam, and shitloads of it.
So finally they deemed the hood safe to pop, and they had to pry it open to hose the innards down, and by then it was pretty safe to say the car was history. And it was a fairly new and fairly nice car, too. Hope they had insurance.
And then it occurred to me that the car was parked...
Wait for it...
In the fire lane.
No punchline there.