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Funniest or most surreal experience?

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Posted by Pete on March 27, 2023 at 20:18:19

I'll try to prompt some discussion, and ask if you'd like to share your funniest or most surreal experience. Something that, when you look back on it, makes you laugh for any reason.

I have at least a few different such experiences I can think of, considering how I grew up spending the summers horsing around with my friends, splashing in whatever body of water we came across. But the funny story that comes to mind first is this one.

When I was in high school, I was... not a great student. I grew up in a very economically depressed area where there wasn't a lot of employment opportunities. So, it was tough to get motivated to do well in school, since there wouldn't seem to be any advantage to trying very hard at anything. I really had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I naively thought that after I graduated, I'd make my way to a larger city and get a job working in a warehouse or factory or something until I decided on what I wanted to be. My parents, who were disgusted by the lack of education interest and opportunities in our area, were horrified by my lack of concern, but they didn't have a lot of better ideas, if I'm being honest.

Meanwhile, my brother who's a year older than me got interested in a firefighter training program that our high school offered. He really got into it, did really well, and today still a career firefighter and paramedic.

I ended up going into the same program in high school. I didn't REALLY want to be a firefighter - especially compared to some of the guys who lived and breathed firefighting every minute of every day. Rather, I was just there because I didn't really have anything better to do. But, it did enjoy it, let's face it, what kind of teenage guy doesn't like big trucks, saving lives, and thinking you're a hero? And I ended up doing reasonably well in the program, so that when I graduated from high school, I was immediately accepted into an "internship" program with a real fire department. An internship meant that you joined the fire department, and they paid for all of your classes to get all your official certifications, and they also gave you a dorm room to live at the fire station. In exchange, you were pretty much always on duty (unless you were in class), since you lived at the fire station. So if a call came in, any time of day, you'd have to go. I'd give the experience mixed reviews. I'd made some good friends and learned a lot. I was also still very young and immature and not quite ready to be a responsible adult. But there were some difficult personalities, and we didn't get paid very much for how much work we did. And I think most importantly, I discovered that I didn't really WANT to be a firefighter after all. But, that's a different story.

So I move into the fire station, there's three other new interns in my class, all of whom had very different personalities, but I've become lifelong friends with each of them. My room mate was James, his twin brother Micah, and another guy named Jake. The city I was working in was huge compared to my hometown. My hometown had a population of a few hundred, and the only real business in town was a gas station / convenience store. My new city had a population of several thousand, had all the fast food restaurants, a few nice sit down restaurants, bars, big box stores, traffic lights, and stuff to do after 5pm. Still a small town compared to any major city in the country, but night and day compared to where I came from. It was in the mountains of western North Carolina, and even though it was only a few hours from home in West Virginia, it couldn't be more different. W.Va. had fallen into poverty and depression. But, this area in North Carolina was a growing destination, and had a thriving tourist industry - it attracted skiiers in the winter, and hikers/campers/kayakers in the summer. It meant our fire department was quite busy. Our station was right in the middle of main street (a very walkable and quaint street filled with shops, bars and restaurants), and our Chief was insistent that we were always approachable, engaging and professional and welcoming whenever the public happened to wander past. And, for whatever other weaknesses I might have had, I was always very good at being a "people person," and I really loved talking with people who'd walk by, showing off the fire trucks to the kids, and stuff like that.

So enough boring background information, on with the real story. Within a few weeks of joining, the town was having its big 4th of July carnival. Our street would be blocked off to traffic (except for fire trucks on emergencies, of course), and filled with vendors, carnival rides and games, people selling delicious but unhealthy fried food, all the staples of a summer carnival. And, to my delight, our fire department's contribution to the event was a dunk tank, setup on the sidewalk right in front of our station.

Now one thing about firehouse culture that is important to understand is, if there's any not-fun job that no one wants to do, then the rookie will end up doing that job. And, if you are the rookie, you'd better be quick to volunteer without any complaining to do any job that the older guys don't want to do. Unsurprisingly, dunk tank duty was one of these jobs, and I was able to score some brownie points early on in my career by being the first to sign up for a turn getting dunked. For my room mate and fellow rookie James, he said he'd never been in a dunk tank before, but was eager to take a turn. Micah and Jake were less enthusiastic, but definitely weren't going to get caught complaining about it. So, all four of us interns were "ecstatic" about working the dunk tank.

So the day of the carnival, it was bright and sunny and insanely hot, the temperature was close to 100. Even Micah, who was maybe the most reluctant about having to go in the dunk tank, seemed much more agreeable to the idea given the insane heat that day. I decided to go "above and beyond" and wear my full uniform - a navy blue button down, navy blue pants and a black web belt. The other guys, understandably, went with our navy blue t-shirts. James and Micah wore blue gym shorts, Jake went with our heavier duty shorts (also navy blue.) "Why are you dressed like that?" James laughed at me. "Because its funny!" I responded, which was true. Not to mention, I also wanted to get publicly drenched in my uniform.

I did decide at the last minute to take off my shoes and socks, and I didn't have a spare set of shoes I could sacrifice at that point in time. And I had to be the first one up on the seat. The dunk tank was one of the usual bright blue plastic devices that's commonly rented everywhere - much safer but maybe less one than the home-built ones we'd have at the annual church carnival back home. But I wasn't complaining, the water was clear and cool, and there was a huge crowd of kids and families eager to dunk a firefighter. So I climbed up on the seat and started working the crowd, and the cold water felt great on my uniform whenever I'd get dunked in. The fire department was running it as a fundraiser, for $1 you'd get three shots at the target, and I immediately made an executive decision that if a kid paid their dollar, they could dunk me, even if they miss all three of their throws. This of course meant I ended up in the water every minute or two, which didn't bother me. (But Micah later did yell at me, because of course the other dunkees had to follow the same rule, so all four of us ended up spending more time in the water than out of it.) And of course every time I got dunked I waved and made funny faces through the clear window in the front of the tank.

Once my first time on the hot seat was over, I switched to helping with collecting money and handing out tennis balls. I'd gotten some friendly comments about my soaking wet uniform, of course I thought it was great, especially on a brutally hot day like that day. The first thing that happened that actually surprised me was that a father with two young kids walked up to me, introduced himself, shook my hand, and said that his kids wanted a photo with the firefighter that they'd both dunked. I thought that was kind of an unusual request, but I agreed, and we stepped a bit into the street and smiled for a picture - then they said Thank You again and were on their way.

When I turned around, an older gentleman came over to me and started talking to me. He observed that I must be new here, and asked me my name, where I was from, and so on. Then started telling me about himself - I quickly picked up that he was a pillar of the community, had lived there his whole life, and had previously at one time or another been the town's police chief, fire chief, road paver, school teacher, mayor and pretty much everything else. And he clearly liked to talk (as did I) so the conversation just kept going and going, he asked about where I was from, where I went to high school, where my parents were from, where my brother worked, whether I'd visited different places around town, where I've traveled to... He was actually quite nice to talk to, but here's the thing - it was a hot summer afternoon with the sun beating down, and I was standing barefoot on the hot blacktop road - and if you've ever stood barefoot on hot blacktop before, you know that's not a very pleasant experience! So I'm trying very hard not to be rude, but I'm also very visibly hopping from one foot to the other, hoping that the soles of my feet don't literally burn on the hot street. Finally, the gentleman notices my dilemma - "Oh, you're not wearing shoes! I'm sorry!" And I think that means we'll politely end the conversation, but no! Instead he motions me to follow him a few paces over to a strip of grass along the sidewalk - which at least felt a little nicer on my feet - but then just picked right back up with talking to me. I had to laugh at myself, since to anyone else the scene must have been quite funny, between my soaking wet uniform, my burning bare feet, and a never-ending conversation with elderly man I'd never met before. Finally one of the other firemen took pity on me and interrupted us, and I quickly decided I needed another turn in the dunk tank to cool off, after which I slipped back inside for a shower and a change into dry clothes.

Thing is, despite this guy being even more talkative than me, he genuinely had a heart of gold, and usually once or twice a month he'd buy dinner for everyone at the fire station, and stop in to chit chat with some of the old guys every week or so. And every time he saw me ever since then, he'd never remember my name, but he'd always greet me with "Oh! You're the kid who went for a swim in your uniform, then burned your feet off shooting the sh-t with me! How are you doing, son?!"

So anyway, that's my story that I just have to laugh every time I think of it. Anyone else have one?



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