By M.B.
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November 7, 2020
Did someone say “FIRE”?!? It was just another day in the pod life. Work, eat, sleep. Repeat. I was in the “work” cycle, and after an hour and a half in the office and three cups of coffee, it was time to go to the ladies room, aka W.C. (water closet). Why is it called a water closet? Because everything in the Middle East has a weird, different name than what we are accustomed to in the good ol’ US of A. As I exit my office and walk down the hallway, it is impossible for me not to glance into the offices that have open doors. Maybe some people can put blinders on and walk down the hall with their head down, but not me. I know where I am, and I am always (mostly) situationally aware. PLUS, I am a woman, and a nosey one at that. I was almost to the ladies room when I walked past, and glanced into, the office of one of our State Department advisors. I continued on, taking one more step, when suddenly what I had seen registered in my brain and stopped me dead in my tracks. Was I seeing things? In one swift movement I took a giant step backwards and pivoted to the left so that I landed smack dab in the doorway to the office. The scene unfolding before me confirmed that I was not in fact hallucinating. I stood there aghast for a moment with my mouth wide open as I stared at the State Department advisor holding his fancy coffee maker which was engulfed in flames. The moment of shock quickly passed, and I promptly switched gears. I turned around, sprang across the hall, grabbed the fire extinguisher off the opposite wall, and then leapt back across the hall and into the office. As I reached to pull the pin (you know, pull, squeeze, sweep), I realized there wasn’t one. What kind of effing newfangled sh*t was this? I spent the next few seconds surveying the extinguisher in an attempt to figure the dang thing out, and then looked up to see the advisor still holding the coffee pot, only now the plastic parts of it had melted and were dripping down in gooey streams from the bottom of the pot. Presto, the carpet was on fire too! Sh*t. The situation was escalating quickly. I promptly put down the fire extinguisher, picked up a bottle of water, and poured it onto the carpet and coffee maker (the advisor had finally put it down on the floor and had thankfully unplugged it from the wall outlet). As the flames gave in to defeat and were snuffed out, pungent smoke rose up from the ashen remains and set off the fire alarm. Time to go! There are no secrets in the pod life; everyone knows everyone else’s business, and word of my “heroism” quickly spread, eventually making its way to the safety office. I received a ration of sh*t for not knowing how the fire extinguisher worked; and sure enough, the following week our safety brief included a torturously long and drawn out lecture on the proper handling of fire extinguishers. Sorry folks; that was me. M.B.