A Journal About Fires – Those That Burn Your Room And The Others That Burn Passionately For Travel

NYC 2007– The morning of Halloween.
Or more accurately: The Morning Camille Thought She Was Just Going To Work Dressed Zebra Style But That Later Transitioned Into The Finale Of Mott House.

Our heroine is dressed as a zebra. Standing at the hostess’s stand she picks up the phone with one hand, while her other grips a coffee pot.
Camille: “Hello?”
Roommate: “Camille you have to come home now. Our apartment burnt down.”
Long pause. Shocked, Camille becomes visibly upset and pales even whiter under her face paint.
Camille: “Um… is… is my laptop ok?”
Roommate: “I don’t know. Probably not, everything’s burnt.”
Camille (with a trembling voice): “Could… could you go check?!”

Leaving for the breakfast shift that morning, Camille had no idea she would never sleep in Mott House again.

After a tearfully rushed exit the shocked zebra successfully [for once!] hails a cab outside the café and books it to Chinatown.
At the apartment our heroine totters down the charred hallway and immediately crashes into a strange square melted carcass lying in the hallway. With relief her first instinct – Dead Body!? – is dissolved as she recognizes it as a post explosion suitcase, now empty in the middle. She tilts her fuzzy strap-on-ear in a greeting of commiseration [and I’mtotallycryingunderthisfacepaint] to the firemen scooping water off the carpet.

Parfum Smoke & Ash loiters on everything in her room. Camille remembers when her friend Luke lived above a pizza shop he said it smelt like the inside of a pizza oven as it burnt down. She can’t help momentarily lamenting not having responded to a Craigslist ‘room for sublet’ ad above a cupcake bakery.
[#AndyesFIYthelaptopisOK!]

6 months later…
Camille is awakened from her slumber by the irritating bleeping of a smoke alarm and his partner in crime – a completely torched saucepan. Upon investigating she discovers her new housemate Buck has passed out butt naked on his bed mid midnight fry up, leaving said saucepan to urgently send smoke signals for attention.
But that’s a fire story for another time…

Our heroine learns many lessons That Day.
Fire trucks aren’t simply paid background extras in an ongoing NYC reality show.
Fire extinguishers have many uses – both as an instrument to prop open the front door AND to put out fires.
Sleeping in a closet with no windows while living with 11 people in a sardine can with no fire exits is like Vegas – It might not be fun, but it’s damn sure to be memorable.