Well, I’m feeling like a bit of a dumbass this evening.  The fire department just left a few minutes ago, and they were here because I called them.

I’ve lived in apartment buildings for 10 straight years now, and until tonight have never once experienced a general fire alarm.  So, when I opened the back door of our unit to see what was going on–this was a few floors above the boiler room, incidentally–and saw smoke, I did what I thought was reasonable: Call 911, and get the family out of the building.

Um, yeah.  Turns out our upstairs neighbor burned some cookies.  (I hope there wasn’t some real emergency somewhere.)  He was embarrassed about it to begin with, and now I feel like a bit of a dick because I threw the Minneapolis Fire Department at him.

At least the hipsters across the street found it entertaining.

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I have to admit to being a bit impressed at our neighbor setting off the building’s alarm by simply baking cookies, especially considering the number of times I’ve inadvertently produced flames in our oven, on the stove, and even in the microwave.  Rarely have I set off our ceiling units, much less the building’s system.

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Fire is one of the few things that freaks me out a little.  I remember being a bit weirded out by the place Sarah and I lived in River Falls going up a few years after I’d moved out.  Then there was the house I delivered newspapers to as a kid that blew up after a gas leak.  And the time I watched a friend take out a curtain via poor placement of a candle.  Everyone knows someone who’s had these things happen, of course, so I don’t know I flip and pick up the phone when others just shrug and ignore it.

The reason for that may actually go back to the fact I was a bit of a pyro growing up.  (Actually, that may run in the family.  My brother and I both, on separate occasions, came close to burning down wooded areas near two of our homes.)  I liked to burn things, and for a couple of years became fascinated with making homemade fireworks (a habit that came to an end after accidental ignition of some of them in my parent’s basement).  As such, I have a pretty well-tuned idea about how quickly things can burn if given the chance. Dry kindling can ignite amazingly fast, and, well, a building of this age is basically dry kindling.

With my wife and son in it.

So, while I’m going to try not to fault myself for calling, if something like this happens again, I’ll wait until I see flames.  Which I really should’ve done tonight.