"Lasagna and Firemen"

Dear Reader,

It all began with frozen lasagna.

After church, my sister decided to put a lasagna from the freezer into the oven.  So, she preheated the oven to Fahrenheit 451, and did just that.

About an hour into cooking a delicious oven lasagna, you can usually start to smell it cooking . But that wasn't the case this time around. Well, the oven was on. And it was warm. And so we assumed the food was cooking. But when we took out the lasagna after 2 hours of cooking, and the cheese in the middle hadn't even melted, we knew something was wrong.

The house didn't smell like delicious oven lasagna. The house smelled a lot like rotten eggs. Like natural gas.

Naturally, if your house smells like unlit natural gas, you can be worried for your safety. We turned off the oven, but the smell didn't go away. Did we have a gas leak? Was our house going to blow up? Were we about to die? What was the best thing to do?

My mom called my dad. He told my mom to call 911. She told me that she was calling 911. I told her that calling 911 was ridiculous.  She told the whole family to get into the car. We drove to the volunteer fire station, and a guy there told us to call 911. We called, and they told us to get home and wait outside. The fire department was on its way.

The fire department showed up at our house.

Like....seriously.



The fire department showed up at our house.

The sirens, the huge fire-truck, the firemen, the mechanical hound, the helmets, the gear. It was just like the movies. Except there was no baby trapped inside a burning building.......and the only problem was that the Merrill home smelled kinda funky.

So we all went inside, and they solved the problem by pulling out the oven and turning off the gas connection. They pretty much saved the day.

Afterwards, my mom asked the firemen if she had done the right thing. She wasn't sure if it was okay that she had called 911 just for that small little issue. One of the firemen (Montag.) turned to my mom and spoke words of assurance. "You did the right thing, ma'am. When you have any doubt, call us. That's why we're here. Any time of the day, if you need help, call us."

He was dead serious. The other firemen nodded in agreement. You could hear it in the fireman's voice. You could see it in their actions. They were there to serve because they cared.

It was comforting to have those firemen standing in our living room. Comforting to know that if we needed help, they would be there. There was something special about them. They weren't just firemen. They were so much more than that. They were glorious.

We ended up microwaving the lukewarm lasagna. And it was delicious. NM