In the spirit of the day

I'll go ahead and post about a little prank we pulled yesterday at the firehouse. It almost got us in hot, well, water. You'll see what I mean.

We had our main engine in the shop, and it got brought back to us while we were working out. We went down to the bay (we have a 2 story firehouse) and swapped our equipment back to it. As we were about to go back inside, one of the guys suggested we climb the firepole back upstairs instead of walking. The first guy climbed, then the second guy. There was me and one other person downstairs. I wasn't sure I could do it, so I let the other guy go first. He got a few feet up but kept sliding back down. The pole has a trap door at the top that opens when you put weight on the pole. The theory is that if a child were to step on it, it would hold the child up, but an adult on the pole weighs enough to open the trap. I think it holds like 60 lbs or so. Anyhow, I realized that I could only see one guy through the opening, and I got a funny feeling about where the other guy had gone, so I just took the stairs.

About 3/4 of the way up I could still hear the conversation between the guys upstairs and the guy downstairs. Both guys upstairs were back, and were feverishly trying to convince him to 'give it one more chance'. Then the began clammering for me to try and climb. I turned the corner and saw what they were upu to: they had set a bucket of water on the trap door!

Luckily my gut (both instinct and size!) had led me away from danger. The guy downstairs had given up and was going to just take the stairs. But it dawned on me that we had a new guy who had just started on Monday, and he was downstairs in the Training Officer's office, and it was about time for him to go home. In other words, a perfect opportunity. In a flash the original prankster went downstairs and started trying to talk the new guy into climbing the pole.

Being that he was so new and would be working on our shift, he was eager to give it a try. He came out into the bay to size up the pole before his attempt. He asked how the trap door worked. To our horror, the Training Captain, who had come with him to see what the new guy had in him, said 'It's easy, your weight opens the trap, watch'.

It's amazing how time seems to slow down sometimes. I remember looking at the guy standing at the top of the pole with me. We both had the same 'Oh No' look on our faces. I had a thought to grab the bucket, then replace it when the new guy tried to climb up. It seemed like about 10 minutes. In reality it was about 3 seconds. I saw him through a crack in the trap, then it was all over. As soon as he grabbed the pole and pulled, he knew his mistake. He had a shocked look on his face, as the bucket overturned. I swear I could see individual water droplets falling. And here we were, the 4 of us, the new guy, and the man third from the top of the department, who was now thoroughly and truly soaked.

Luckily for us he knew that it was not intended for him, and though you could tell he was furious, he laughed it off pretty well. I thought we were cooked, but so far he has let it go pretty well. From what I can tell he's the type that will wait a while and then get back at us. I'll let you know when that happens. I suspect it will be Monday, when we have to do our bi-annual combat test. It won't surprise me to find a dumbbell in the hose back or a 45lb weight strapped to the dummy.