Back in the fall of 2006 when I was doing internship at Amerascope with full time courses at UNO, it was tough to catchup with school work. The fall semester has began, and the leaves started falling off trees every time there was a slight wind blow. Most of the times by the end of the day wind speeds increased making too many leaves fall at once. I was in my usual last-year-at-this-time nostalgia and was glad that I made it a year in US. All my courses were very critical subjects involving lot of work which was difficult with my almost full time internship. One fine weather day I was coming back from work in my car(91 Honda Accord). My car used to be in trouble almost regularly, as if in love with the mechanic and I was arranging their dates which were heavy on my pocket. As I turned into 69th street from Pacific I smelled something burning. I thought there might be some trash left by someone at the back, but still I was a bit tensed thinking about another date with the mechanic. When I got off and locked the door I saw steam from the bonnet. Let off some steam bonnet..I thought, but out of curiosity I opened up the hood. For a moment I lost my breathe when I saw fire near the engine. My mind went blank. Out of shock I was trying to blow off the fire. Though small the fire grew larger when I blew it. The wind outside was blowing faster with dry leaves flying around. In my worry I was looking around for water to put off the fire. A guy passing by told me to call 911. I shut the hood close and called 911 from my mobile. After giving instructions and address the lady asked me if it was in Omaha,??**!!%$# Yesss I shouted. The fire was near the engine when I saw it. I was far away from my car as it appeared that my car could explode any moment, the scenes from countless Hollywood movies that I saw influenced my thought so much. Then I ran inside to my apartment and searched for some big cloth to put off the fire and took one of my shirts and ran to the parking lot outside. By that time I could hear the loud siren of the fire truck. It was amazingly quick response. Two men heavily geared/dressed/armed with fire extinguishers got down and asked me where the fire was. I pointed them to my car's hood. They opened it up only to find some ash near the engine. He told that the alternator got burnt. And took my car's VIN number and left. At the next date with the mechanic I was told that the alternator's motor got heated up so much that the wires melted and caught fire. I replaced it with a used alternator for $160.
Every time we used to hear the fire trucks siren, we used to wonder whose what was burning. They used to run almost regularly. No wonder they made it so quickly to my apartment. But never imagined that it would be coming for me one day!! Life is unexpected, be ready to hear the siren.
