To Light a Fire (Under My Butt)

There’s nothing like Santa Ana winds, tinder dry brush and a little accelerant to light a fire under my butt.

I didn’t realize how unprepared I am for a raging inferno. There’s a lot I should be doing. Wildfire in Southern California is not unlike the SuperBowl. It comes around every year, gets excellent Nielsen ratings, and makes grown men cry. Therefore, I need to get smart and prep for FireStorm XXIV.

The good news is we got the chance to test the school district’s emergency information system. I am happy to report it worked great. Via a series of recorded messages, the superintendent notified us of school closures at every phone number and email address we have.

I asked my husband if he got the call at work. He said he did. It really bugged me that he’d pick up for the superintendent—and an interim one at that—while it seems I always get sent directly to voicemail. Go figure.

Still, the slew of school updates was a great opportunity to find the missing cordless phone wedged between the cushions on the couch. It reminded me to check my spam filters. I even thought I could hear the guy talking about poor air quality from one of my fillings.

I went to the gym regularly during the fires, but I thought it would be unhealthful to actually work out. I just wanted to watch what was burning on six different TV stations at once. The LA stations were fixated on Malibu, the San Diego stations had the tricky job of showing Qualcomm stadium without making it look fun, and the East Coast newscasters talked vaguely about Arrowhead and its famous apple orchards burning to apple crisp.

My guess is they meant Julian.

It was hard to know what was really going on. I could see distant giant plumes of smoke that I knew had to be Fallbrook burning. I knew this because my sister-in-law called me to tell me everything was crazy down there. She was being evacuated and on the way out she saw llamas corralled in the Rite Aid garden center.

Yeah, right.

Her car was loaded up to the roof liner with photo albums and clothes when the elementary school called and told her to pick up her kid. Unfortunately, there was no room left in the car.

A million photos of the kid, sure. But the kid herself? Sorry, no space. If only she’d gone digital a few years earlier…

I wanted to suggest the school bus simply swing by the llamas at Rite Aid for a quick student drop-off. But I hesitated. I didn’t know if the whole story was just the byproduct of accidentally inhaling a whole lot of really fine Fallbrook weed now going up in smoke.

So I kept my breathing mask on and my mouth shut.

What a perfect opportunity to take a household inventory for insurance purposes and decide what gets saved and what gets left in the dreaded event of a fire. They said on TV that you might only get 3-5 minutes to evacuate, so you need to know what to grab.

My problem is it would take me 3-5 minutes to find my car keys. I know this because it takes me 3-5 minutes to find my car keys every time I want to go somewhere. I assume running for my life would be no different. I’d probably be left with thirty seconds to grab the valuables.

I started looking around the house. What would I save? I worked my way from room to room, skipping the garage. That’s what happens when I get sent to voicemail one too many times.

It was depressing. There was no good stuff. No jewels or furs or bars of gold. No fancy electronics, no designer handbags. I’m an OC failure. I don’t even have any photo albums, only boxes of pictures I keep meaning to scrapbook.

My car would be empty, except for kids.

Next I reasoned it would be smart to photograph everything I own, you know, for replacement value. I took snaps of everything, even the insides of drawers, cupboards, and closets. I felt proud until I downloaded the photos to Costco.com for convenient warehouse pickup.

The photos clearly showed every storage spot was filled to the brim with junk. How could I show my face at Costco when all their Photo employees have seen the cluttered contents of my drawers? Now I knew how Paris and Pam felt. It’s so humiliating.

I know what to do. I’ll burn the photos.