About two or three weeks ago, on one quiet Saturday morning at 9:33 AM, a fire truck got stuck on our street. And, by our street, I mean right in front of our house. It was stuck due to huge snow banks and the shitty parking job of one white infinity SUV parked across from our house. There was not a gap large enough for the fire truck to get by.

What was the fire truck doing there? I never found out. I’m not sure that they were on there way to or from whatever emergency called them from the station, but one thing was certain: they were not happy that they were stuck.

It started when I was awoken by an explosion inside my head. Was that an explosion? Or, wait, no it was a buzzing-ish sound. A loud buzzing. But my brain was definitely vibrating. But now its gone. Well, now I’m confused, was it even real? I must have been having a weird dream that woke me up. It couldn’t have been real, because nothing real could have possibly made that noise. I put my head back down to go to sleep.

Oh god, there it is again. I cant even think. Its not inside my head. I am more awake now, and I recognize that this is real, and coming from somewhere outside of my body. But I’m not that awake. It sounds like a very loud tuba. Very loud. In our kitchen? That doesn’t make any sense. On our roof? The downstairs neighbors? It is so loud, and resonating off of everything, what direction is it coming from? Wait, doesn’t make any sense. Why would anyone be playing a tuba this early on a Saturday. Wait, still doesnt make any sense, that is one hell of a tuba.

Its gone again. What the hell is going on? I start to sit up, and the doorbell rings.

And now its back, my head is vibrating, but this time it is much shorter bursts. Are we under attack? By tuba wielding aliens? What the hell? Maybe the RIAA finally caught up with all of my music pirating. I pulled on my pants and sweatshirt and ran down stairs to open the door. As I leave my room, Josh pokes his head out and gives me a look like “WTF?”

I open the door, and there is a fireman on our porch, looking angry, but speaks in a friendly voice. “Is that your car?” He points across the street. Past the giant red truck. At that white infinity SUV. The truck blows its horn again, and my head vibrates.

Around the street, firemen are knocking on other doors. There are two down down by the front of the truck, trying to guage any way of getting past this SUV. It was parked nose first into the snow bank, the driver clearly pulling around the car behind him and was too lazy to straighten out the car. As though he pulled into an angled parking spot on some commercialized storefront, although not as pronounced an angle. The fire truck was blocked by about 2 feet.

“No…” I told him, at this point trying to figure out why the truck was here in the first place.
“Do you know whose it is?”

As much as I wanted to say it was Josh’s, and see the firefighters yell at him, i figured that would just end badly for me. “No, I have no idea.”

“Which car is yours?” I thought this was an odd question. What did my car have to do with this? I didn’t park like a jackass. Wait a second, where is my car? I had to think for a second. Then I pointed to it, and realized precisely why the fireman had asked. It was parked on the opposite side of the street from the white infinity.

The fireman turns to look at it, and I offer to move it. “Yeah, I think that will help.” I run inside to get my keys as he turns and shouts “He’s going to move the black car right there!” The truck starts to back up.

I run down to my car, and pull it back into the neighbors driveway. Despite all of this hubbub with firemen and people yelling, I half expected those neighbors to come down and yell at me for using their driveway, but that explanation is a whole separate story. The truck rolls forward, slowly, making an awkward arc around the white infinity. The other firemen run in front of it, folding back the mirrors of other cars and making sure there is room. Amazingly, the truck fits past. Those guys really know how to maneuver that thing.

I park the car, go back inside, and go back to sleep.