Friday morning and afternoon had me play witness to two of the most devastating items in our world. My next-door neighbors’ house burned down, and every idiot that the good Lord put on this earth must have shown up to watch.

I had been evacuated from my house (as it was so close to the blaze) and thus was forced to stand in the cold and listen to every illogical, ill-founded accusation that popped into the minds of those around me.

The residents of the house themselves were additionally upset and also were screaming for more to be done. However, taking grief into account, I can’t imagine these people being satisfied with anything short of having all their valuables intact, and that just wasn’t possible. It was understandable that they were upset. I would have been equally devastated, if not more so.

Now, for the rest of you non-residents: who in the hell do you think you are? Each and every one of you yelling sarcastic comments at the firefighters have one heck of a lot of nerve. Some of you insisted that the firemen were waiting too long to act, and when they did act weren’t paying attention to what they were doing. What are you people, junior firefighters?

Within 15 to 20 minutes of the arrival of the first fire truck, at least four or five more arrived. At one point I swore the entire DeKalb Fire Department, and then some, were in attendance. Now let me get this straight—you rocket scientists were trying to convince everyone there that a mistake in policy was being made and not one out of all those firefighters noticed it? OK.

You sideline hotshots (no pun intended) were shouting to the firefighters as to what should have been done. Since when has an NIU undergrad known how to better fight a fire than an entire fire department? I didn’t even know we had a major here on how to fight fires.

ave you know-it-alls ever thought about what it’s like to be a firefighter? It’s like playing in hell every single day of your life. Every time you leave the station house you have to face the fact that you might not come back. What’s the biggest danger the rest of us face during the day? Perhaps a little confusion at the computer terminal, dodging a Huskie bus, falling asleep in class—what is it?

I had the displeasure of standing near three of you fools in particular for far too long. Of course you already think too much of yourselves to even comtemplate that I might be talking about you. Well, let me just say that I normally have a tremendous tolerance, but you three nearly got your tongues slapped out of your mouths.

A firefighters first priority is saving lives. The fire comes second, and if any of you wanna-be firefighters think you can do better, then by all means try and get in the union and save us from our dangerous selves.

These firefighters have more guts than some of you potential yuppies could ever try to buy. We take far too much for granted, including our police and fire departments. Next time your house or apartment is on fire who would you rather have handle the situation, a loud mouth who thinks he can handle every situation better than anyone else, or a firefighter who has been trained. They do things for a reason, and just because you don’t understand why doesn’t mean it’s wrong.