The Captain Chronicles: The Saga Begins

The Captain is meticulously ethical and would not allow any hint of the identities or embarrassing peccadillos of the citizens of the fine city in which he works, let's call it Fort Chinook, which oftentimes spill out during spousal confessions of fatigue over his burden as Personal Clean-Up Crew to thousands of taxpayers, to leak out.

I, however, am not so ethically bound.

These are the occasional chronicles of some of the more ridiculous of those taxpayer stories.

Relative to, say, Thanksgiving (flaming turkeys) or Independence Day (flaming city), the Super Bowl is a pretty low-key day at the fire station (Let's call it Fire Station Cobra). A station can expect a lull in the call volume during the game itself, and then a pick-up in activity once the beery spectators attempt to drive home.

Last Sunday was no exception with one exception. There is always a chance, on any holiday (and let's face it: Super Bowl Sunday is an American holiday), for simmering family feuds to boil over.

The call came in during the third quarter of the game for a woman with severe leg pain. Ouch, right?

So they pull up at the domicile. The husband of said woman is, as loving and supportive husbands naturally would, standing outside, smoking a cigarette. The woman with the ambulance-worthy leg pain is inside, waiting to tell her story. It seems as if her biggest complaint isn't that her leg hurt. In fact, it has been hurting for five days. What was really throbbing was her frustration with her husband for ignoring her complaints for five days (and, I suspect, her inability call a doctor or drive to a clinic on her own without whatever boost her husband's sympathy might have given her). So when the torture of their own passive-aggressive relationship hit its peak - in the third quarter of the biggest football game of the year - she chooses to call 911, and tell her story to three firefighters and an ambulance crew.

Touche, lady. Touche.

Don't forget, friends: firefighters are people, too.