I have been
asked if Firefighters are good in bed and since I’ve only slept with one, my
ex-wife, I have a very limited data base on the subject. I won’t discuss my
ex-wife in this post as that is far too private for a blog. I will offer some
stories about firefighters in bed that I do know all too well.
Most of the
fire houses I worked in over my career featured dormitory style bedrooms with a
dozen or so beds set up around the room. Most of the time the bed you used was
also used by other firefighters on your days off.
Some bunk
mates were good others not so much. See if you share a bed it is your
obligation when going off duty to tear your bed down and leave it bare for the
next guy. Just simple courtesy to keep harmony in the house. Now an occasional
mishap was no big deal, maybe they were on an alarm and just forgot about it
before leaving, that could be forgiven.
But the
chronic offenders had to be dealt with. First with a few friendly reminders.
“Hey bro
you forgot your bed again.”
“Dude take
care of your bed or I will.”
“Look
asshole strip your bed okay?”
Failure on
the offender’s part to recognize that things were getting testy wasn’t good.
Now some firefighters are just dim bulbs and can’t help themselves, they get
distracted by morning coffee chit-chat or shift change banter or simply wander
off.
If your
bunk mate is just helpless and incapable of remembering, you do have options.
If you like the simpleton you just strip the bed for them and put their bedding
away. If you dislike the asshat then you wad their stuff up and throw it on the
ground.
But if you
are dealing with the intentional misfit things escalate. Some guys just seem to
get a kick out of jacking with others and I have worn both hats.
The Jerk,
many times is a bored firefighter with time to kill. Most of the time you are
working at a slow station with a lite alarm load and thing just get boring and
this is a great way to conjure up some action. For me I only took this route
when my brother firefighter was one of the anal types.
These guys
brought beautiful twin sheet sets from home or had actually gone to Beds Baths
and Beyond to purchase a matching set with a comforter. They even had seasonal
bedding, flannel for the winter and fall, Egyptian cotton with an 800 thread
count for spring and summer.
I don’t
know but that just seemed a bit too much for the fire house. Therefore I
struggled with their choices, don’t get me wrong here, if the guy stripped his
bed like he was supposed to I didn’t care if his linens were made out of bacon,
just take care of your end of the bargain.
Repeated
and unremorseful offences had to be addressed, my favorite was to soak the offending
sheets in water and then stuff them into the freezer. That generally worked.
But many times it lead to an escalation in hostilities inside the bedroom
walls. Retaliation was required for an insult of this magnitude.
The good
news for me was that most of the time this type of firefighter lacked the
ability to come up with a better form of revenge, they lacked imagination and
many times lacked team support from their crew. No one else was willing to
proffer suggestions on how to retaliate or offered to help. This left the poor
bastard to devise his own type of trickery.
Prior to
the internet and the ability to search Youtube or Google for practical joke
advice was of course unavailable. So these men created their own unimaginative
yet diabolical plans. Mr. Fancy sheets plan went completely unnoticed by
myself, which caused him even more frustration as he spent day after day
waiting for me to comment or retaliate, I did neither.
Finally one
morning over coffee he couldn’t contain himself any longer.
“So TimO,
did you notice anything different about your bed?” He asked.
“Different
about my bed? No can’t say I’ve noticed anything different about the bed. Why
is there something different about the bed?” I asked.
“So the bed
doesn’t smell differently to you?” He said.
“Not that I
have noticed. What is it you’re after here Bucky?” I asked.
Now
everybody at the table had become intrigued and stopped what they were doing to
listen in.
“You’re
serious you really haven’t noticed that your bedding smells like my ass and
feet?” He said, becoming a bit agitated.
“It does?”
I said.
“Yeah for
like two weeks now.” He said.
“Well
Bucky, I can’t say I know what your ass and feet smell like to be honest, I
thought that would be your wife’s job not mine.” I said.
“You better
take that back.” He said.
“Take what
back?” I asked.
“Insulting
my wife like that, you need to apologize.” He was getting visibly disturbed
now.
“I didn’t
insult your wife Bucky. She shares your bed at the same time as you, where as
you and I share a bed independently of each other. So if our bed at the fire
house smells like your ass and feet how would know?” I said.
“Because I
put some dirty socks and underwear in with your sheets in your locker. That’s
how.” He said.
“And you expect
me to pick up on that odor in that bedroom? Bucky a well trained bloodhound
couldn’t make sense out of the smells in there.” I said.
“Well you
should’ve.” He said.
“Didn’t.” I
said.
He stomped
away blushing and mumbling. But that was the end of aggressions not in the
least.
