The Fire Call Scanner

We are in the midst of the final crunch week for the camp we run for 8th and 9th graders next week. So I will do my best to add our family happenings as well as posting reviews and giveaways, but be patient with me!

Just a quick blurb to brighten your day...

Daddy D is a volunteer fireman in his free time, you know-after being a mailman all day and raising four sons, etc, etc. He drives the rescue truck when a call comes in and he is available. Usually he wears a fire pager on his belt that gives him all of the info no matter where he is. But a couple of weeks back his pager went on the fritz and was sent to the shop for repair. While it's being repaired, the fire company gave him an archaic scanner that takes up half the shelf in my living room. It also squawks incessantly all of the fire calls and alarms in the entire county. Something I am not necessarily all that pleased with.

Well, yesterday we were sitting in the living room watching some family TV and the talking box started it's range of tones and announcements. The 911 operator started calling the specific town's fire department, and then say's "transformer fire". Which to you and me means an electrical power issue. But remember, this is a household dominated with four young sons.

Immediately there is a buzz. Boyz jumping up and down. Asking their father to bring them to the fire call, even though they understand it isn't his district. And then the light almost visibly goes off in a cartoon bulb over our heads. Our sons are convinced that a Transformer, more than meets the eye, autobots, decepticons, has crashed and caught on fire in a neighboring town. Better than any summer blockbuster of a movie, if Daddy moves quickly enough they can get to see one in real life.

Daddy D non-chalantly explains that he is in fact in the middle of preparing a Sunday dinner and Momma D is not feeling so well and lying on the couch. They just cannot possibly pick up and leave at the moment. He does not dispel the myths in their head. Some things are just better left to the imaginations of childhood, until they are old enough to come to a realization of the reality of their own memories.

I am hoping and praying that soon the ancient scanner will soon return to the closet of the fire company and the small personal pager will magically reappear on Daddy D's belt one day in the near future. In the meantime, I guess it is providing some priceless moments!