I'm Burnin', I'm Burnin', I'm Burnin' for You!

By Bud Koenemund

  On this date in 2014, while working as a security guard at the headquarters of the Pittsburgh Steelers (a team I hate with the fire of 10,000 suns), I saved the building from burning to the ground.

  True story.

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  Oh, so you want the long story?

  The Steelers had a guy come in to clean the very large hood over the stoves in the kitchen. He covered the stoves with cardboard -- to keep any soap from going in -- and hung plastic sheeting around the entire area.

  I went about my business while he banged around. I left the cafeteria to do my rounds. Upon ensuring that all three buildings within my area of responsibility were secure -- or relatively so -- I returned to the caf.

   While crossing the parking lot, I could see a flicking light -- a growing flickering -- through the windows and plastic.

  I expedited my return and located the cleaning guy in the supply room of the kitchen. I asked him -- already knowing the answer -- "Are there supposed to be flames?"

  He ran past me toward the stoves. I followed -- mostly out of morbid curiosity. He began removing flaming cardboard from the steel stoves -- located under steel hoods and backed by a stone tile wall -- and deposited it in a plastic garbage can filled with additional cardboard, plastic, and paper which then -- as if by magic; or, perhaps, merely science -- began burning.

  As he began to panic and blow on his singed fingers, I reached for the charged garden hose at our feet -- the hose he'd been using to clean the aforementioned hoods -- and proceeded to liberally apply water to everything in and around the garbage can -- including the cleaning guy.

  Luckily, our hero -- me. Or, you know, not -- extinguished the flames before they spread to the hanging plastic -- which led to the ceiling which was not made of steel -- and, more importantly, before the fire alarm activated.

  Cleaning guy had neglected to extinguish the pilot lights on the stoves before placing cardboard of them.

  Because the alarm did not activate, and the fire department did not respond, I did not write up an incident report that night. I figured the next day I would tell Steelers management what an idiot the cleaning guy was.

  I, of course, did not do another set of rounds until after the cleaning guy left.

  The next day, when I arrived at work, the head of Steelers security (not really my direct supervisor) told me he needed a report of what happened. So, I wrote up a version of the events, and included 27 8 by 10 color, glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what it was.

  To this day, only one person from the Steelers organization has ever said thank you.