Monday, April 21, 2014

Kitchen Table Catch Up

I'm a naughty Wife Behind the Fire, and need to catch up on my Kitchen Table responses!

Packing lunches...

At FF's station they pay $8 a shift (24 hours) for meals. This gets them lunch and dinner ($3 and $5 respectively). They eat as a family, in general. When the medic is hopping (they all rotate on it), those guys tend to eat at the hospital, but overall, they try to eat together. At his part-time job, he is on his own. Sometimes he'll let me pack him food, but he is usually just as happy to stop at the store or have a reason to go out once he's at the station, and get food. On the rare occasions that I do get to pack him food, I try to slip a note card in with it, just to say I love him. Some stations in FF's career department eat out every meal - I cannot imagine the cost over time! Luckily, all the guys at his station are decent cooks, so they eat some decent meals, and not just crap food.

Nosy people...

People have one of a few reactions to finding out I am married to a firefighter. They presume he watches TV and sleeps 24 hours a day on the county dime, they presume he's superman and have hero worship, or they want to know the nitty gritty details of his day to day work calls. Very few just take it with a grain of salt and keep going. I blow off those who fawn over firefighters. I think he's amazing at his job, and I deeply admire his passion for his chosen career. That said, he's still just a guy, and that's part of why I love him. I used to correct people on the whole "sitting around doing nothing" bit, but what's the point, really? There are some slower stations in the county, and I'm sure they do have to bide their time between calls. My FF is miserable when he has to pull a shift at these stations, however. He prefers to stay pretty active at work. I'm pretty vague about details when people ask, as a rule. It helps that I don't work anywhere near where he does, and I didn't grow up around where we live, so nobody expects me to know everyone's dirt. People like to ask about the bad calls, however. If someone is being obnoxious, I tend to be a bit snarky and tell them," oh yeah, it's really an awesome rush to try to avoid getting his on the side of I-95 while scraping someone's brains off the shoulder, and trying to keep their loved ones from seeing what you are doing. It's an awesome feeling, I'm sure, to know you can't do anything for the girl who never even saw the semi-truck before it hit her. Yep, my husband LIVES for that stuff." Then I give them an ugly look, and walk away. Usually, I try not to let it go that far, but sometimes, you just gotta slap a fool down.

2 comments:

  1. You get money for food each day? Interesting. I wonder what other dept's do that?

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  2. Ha, that would be nice! No, that's just what the guys worked out. They each pay for their meals. When there are leftover funds, they use them for stuff like holiday meals, to help pay for a night out for the crew, etc.

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