Political Humor | Oh, What a Night!

Around 9PM I went outside and I noticed the smell of gasoline, or oil. First I thought maybe there was a diesel spill on the road. This has happened before. I’ve mentioned before that I live on a highway, so spills on the road are particularly dangerous.

As I got closer to my car in the driveway, I noticed the smell was even stronger. I thought my car might be leaking gas. No, that can’t be it, see if it gets stronger by the road. It did, but it seemed really strong if I stood by the bushes between my driveway, and my neighbors driveway.

I went in and got my flashlight, as I didn’t have on with me yet. When I got to the end of the driveway, it’s not a very long distance - like 15 feet, I could see the thick red oil oozing from my neighbor’s driveway and onto the road. It’s raining, I live on a higway, the house is only about 2o feet back from the road, and oil is spilling out onto the road. This just might be a hazzard.

I could see that the oil was running down the whole driveway next door, and traced it back to their oil tank. It turns out that the oil company had just paid a fill ‘er up visit while the people that live there are on a trip to New York (where they moved here from) and the leg on the tank snapped, causing the oil tank to fall over, and the oil to spill out, onto the highway that’s only 20 feet from my bedroom window, where I sleep, while it was the raining. Did I mention the oil, the rain, the highway, or how close to said highway I lay in my bed?

Anyhoo, at this point I called 911 and reported the oil spill. They sent a patrol car, and I showed the officer what was going on. He radioed back and they sent fire trucks and more fire trucks, and a few more firetrucks that had a hazmat team to clean up the mess.

Here’s what I saw:

Firetrucks outside my bedroom

I should also mention that the bright glare you see there is not from the flash on my camera. I turned the flash off. That’s from the freakin’ spotlight on the truck. The spotlight pointed directly at my bedroom window.

Firetrucks outside my bedroom, different window

Yep. That’s it. That’s how far it is from my head to the highway. Those guys are actually on the opposite side of the road. The reason for the grid pattern pixelated look of the picture is the screen in my window.

Firetrucks outside my house, taken from outside

Isis was barking incessantly and they were there for hours. It was hard not to just tell her to shut up, because she’s an excellent watchdog, in fact, she alerted us to someone on our property, that did not belong on our property just a few weeks back at 3 in the morning. So, I like the fact that she’s on guard, but these people were supposed to be there, so I tried to tell her, “Good dog. Good watchdog.” At the same time trying to settle her down and let her know that I am aware of the situation and it’s OK. It was semi-effective.

So, that was my dull, boring, dreary night. That, and an autorant.