Firefighter Joey

For years now, Sugar has been trying to win a ride to school in a fire truck. Every year this prize is raffled off during Spring Fling at her school. Every year she buys tickets and carefully fills in her name so it won’t be misread. She passes up other cool prizes like bicycles, gift cards for stores, etc and puts all her tickets in the bucket for the fire truck ride. Every year she is bitterly disappointed when someone else is chosen. This year, she didn’t even stick around to hear who won, and as it turns out, this was her year. Friends told her she won, but I worried for part of the weekend that they might be tricking her. I posted on Facebook and another mother confirmed that Sugar had won this most coveted prize. Sugar kindly said that she would allow her sister to ride along with her. 

I made arrangements with the principal earlier this week. They didn’t want to wait until the last day of school, in case the truck was out on a call that day, there’d be no way to reschedule. Sugar was up by 6:30 waiting for the big moment to arrive. She got into bed with me and chatted my ear off until I finally told her to beat feet. Kids just don’t appreciate that last half hour of sleep.

My mother and aunt showed up to take part in the excitement and the big moment arrived. The fire truck pulled up in front of the house and the girls could barely contain themselves. We took lots of pictures and chatted with Firefighters Joey and Mike. Well, I chatted with them. My mother, aunt and daughters flirted shamelessly with both men, but especially Joey. How could they not? The guy was hot. Spice couldn't even look in his direction without turning a very deep shade of red. Within 30 seconds, my mother had found out he was a former Marine, blah blah. I’m not ashamed to say I gave her a swift kick in the ass. Yes, really. And she had the audacity to ignore me and keep on with the flirting. I’m telling Dad. LOL

Sadly, we only live about two minutes from Sugar’s school, so the ride wasn’t too long but they did drive around a bit. When I got to the school, the teachers had already started lining the kids up outside. Oh yes, the entire school waits outside for the fire truck. The police escort arrived, followed by the speeding fire truck, with lights and sirens blaring. The entire school cheered when they pulled in. It took everything I had not to cry. It was just so cool!  Sugar and Spice both had the biggest smiles. Mike got Sugar down from the truck and said, “Now, we have to walk around to the other side of the truck so everyone can applaud you.” It seemed to me that they enjoyed doing this as much as my girls enjoyed riding in the truck.

Recently, I’ve been thinking that I hate my neighborhood, not crazy for the Mommy Mafia in my town, my commute stinks, I could move closer to the state line and have more job opportunities… There are lots of reasons to leave this town. But today I remembered why I love it here. Schools here are an important part of the community. Local businesses care about the schools and often have nights where they donate a portion of their sales. Many parents care about the school and town and there’s a great sense of community. Dickheads living on my street are excluded from that sentiment.  I love that the different town departments work together as they do. I’ve gone to Mother’s Day lunches at the school and fire fighters and police officers are there, donating their time to serve the mamas. It gives a gal something to feel warm and fuzzy about.

And let’s face it, that Joey was pretty easy on the eyes… 

xoxo

Ice Princess