Fire Drill

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Ours was filled with fun and great food and beauty and well behaved kids.  Which, as you know, makes for terrible blog entries. 

So instead, let’s talk about fire.

Luca is still deeply obsessed with fire engines.  He can’t stop talking about all things red, loud and mustached.  I keep meaning to get him one of those calendars with the shirtless firemen. 

He insists on reading fire truck books every night.  At the end of them, there’s occasionally a “tips for fire prevention” section.  The usual junk is there.  Don’t play with matches.  Don’t use the stove to light your cigarette.  But they almost all suggest creating a family plan in case of fire.

This made a lot of sense to me.  Because out house was constructed in the “Tinderbox Style” that was so popular in the 1890’s. 

I brought both boys into their room and announced we would be conducing an official Hamann Family Fire Drill.

I said, “Okay guys.  What do you do if you hear the fire alarm?”

Luca said enthusiastically, “We call Iron Man and he’ll come and he’ll fly in and use his powers to blow out the fire.”

I said, “Yeah, I think Dr. Doom is going to be keeping him busy for a while, so what do we do if Iron Man is not available?”

After a dumbfounded pause I continued, “We feel the door.  What do we do if the door is hot?”

Luca said, “We call Iron Man…”

I cut him off and explained again that Iron Man will not be helping.  If the door is hot they are not to open it.  And they should put a towel of blanket under the crack, open the window and wait for us to rescue them.  

This is where Diana and I disagree.  She says that she and I most likely be instantly consumed in any fire in our house, so it should be the boy’s number one job to escape.  She suggested that they smash the window using the chair of their art table and then scale down the two floors using some kind of stuffed animal pulley system or leap onto our threadbare bushes, and meet at the fire hydrant across the street.

Well, that was the worst case scenario regardless.

I asked them what they should do if they feel the door and it is not, in fact, hot.

“We call Spider Man and he’ll come in with his webs and save us like this, whoop!  Bam!”

I looked at Elijah and said, “You do realize he is your responsibility in a fire, right?”

Eli said, “What about Grover?”

“Look at his face.  He won’t hesitate to abandon us. It’s up to you.”

He agreed.