Simply Nutmeg started a meme recently: Filch It Friday. I'm filching from Kathy Likes Pink, who posted excerpts from her town's police blotter the other day.
The police/fire/ambulance blotter is often great reading in a local paper. I always make sure to check it when on vacation in a little town. And no one in my family has ever forgotten an item that appeared in the paper in the smallish town I grew up in: "A large cardboard box was seen moving down Main Street".
Here's the Fire Department blotter from my town for last week, redacted as necessary, emphasis mine:
Thursday
8:29 a.m.- The FD responded to an automatic mutual aid call to XXXXX for a smell of smoke at the XXXXX Elementary School. After an investigation the origin of the smoke was found to be from an outside burn at a commercial property on XXXXX Road.
Friday
6:02 p.m. - The FD responded to an automatic residential fire alarm at a residence on XXXXX Lane. The alarm was set off by accident by a relative of the homeowner.
8:28 p.m. - The FD responded to an automatic commercial fire alarm at the XXXXX Middle School. The alarm was set off by workers in the school.
Sunday
10:54 a.m.- The FD responded to an automatic residential fire alarm at a residence on Devoe Road. The alarm was set off in error by the homeowner.
Tuesday
6:40 p.m. - The FD responded to an automatic mutual aid call to XXXXX for an automatic commercial fire alarm at the XXXXX Elementary School. The alarm was set off by a custodian cooking.
Happily, the Fire Department did not actually address any fires at all. But what was the custodian cooking?
16 comments:
I think I posted this once, that our police blotter had an item about someone calling in to report an injured squirrel. The police "advised her to let nature take its course."
Poor, unloved little Sammy Squirrel...
Oh gosh I laughed through your whole post. The cardboard box moving down Main street is hilarious!
And, it sounds like the Fire Department should have a town-wide seminar on how NOT to accidently set off alarms!
i just totally snorted
Snort fest here too. Thanks for Friday afternoon entertainment.
what a great post! the best police log -- all bongo drum entries are written in verse, cows regularly escape, and it's a college town, so you know -- is at the arcata eye: http://www.arcataeye.com/index.php?module=pagesetter&tid=2&topic=7
WHY did I find this so damn funy. Honestly, if I was a fireman I'd most likely be crying after a week like that.
Thanks for playing along!
i want to know more about this moving cardboard box.
I think that custodian was cooking up mischief. ;)
I think I can say with some certainty that the custodian was merely reheating trays of 3 month old pizza or chicken nuggets. This time of year they are trying to get rid of stuff that has been around for awhile :-)
Those poor firemen suiting up and rushing out repeatedly to find things like a custodian cooking himself dinner at the elementary school. LOL.
Our newspaper once ran a headline about the sick elephant at the local zoo, whose name was Fanny. The headline said (and I am not making this up) "Doctors Probe Fanny." Front page news, that was.
I'm glad your firefighters had a fire-free week!
When boyfriend lived in DC reading the police blotter would make me unable to leave the house. Seriously. It took up pages and pages. One's own neighborhood would be several columns for that week.
It's good though because I find the police blotter in my current city kind of comforting by comparison, even though there are plenty of crimes.
I like the idea of filch it Fridays.
and WHY was the custodian cooking?
I love this police blotter idea! Police blotters around here are fun--when I used to live in DC they were just plain old scary.
I love this kind of stuff. I used to subscribe to the county paper but when the owner died and it got sold to a conglomerate, the quality got so bad I couldn't stand it anymore. Also, got the book you sent! Thanks!
It's like News of the Weird (is that just in the Chicago Reader? No, it has to be syndicated) only for fires. What WAS the custodian cooking?
The cardboard box item is too funny. I think my town is even more boring than that.
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