“To finally do something about all that sexual tension.”

Picture-perfect Hernandez, the last guy on earth I would ever think of as anything other than a health-food-eating, CrossFit-training ladies’ man, leaned over close to my ear, right there at the banquet table, and asked me to spend the night with him. He wasn’t just in our department’s calendar-he was on the cover. He lifted weights, and flossed, and preened, and he used his washboard stomach and perfectly aligned white teeth to snare more unsuspecting ladies than I could count. He was like a Latino firefighting Ken doll-so bizarrely perfect, he wasn’t even real. Hernandez, who was so perfectly, mechanically handsome that he didn’t even register as handsome anymore. Hernandez, who I’d never once thought of that way.

The newspapers were calling me the School Bus Angel.Īnd Hernandez, of all people, chose this moment to hit on me. The winter before, a busload of schoolchildren had slid off an icy road into a ravine, and I had climbed inside to push the kids out through a window, one by one, as the water rose.

There we all were, the entire B-shift from Station Eleven, in our dress uniforms, using salad forks-and there I was, in my crisscross tie, getting more and more nervous at the prospect of having to walk up on that stage in front of all those people under all those lights. The rest I’d hope to get back through an insurance claim.THE NIGHT I became the youngest person-and the only female ever-to win the Austin Fire Department’s valor award, I got propositioned by my partner.Īt the ceremony. But given the choice, I’d probably go for photos too – plus the backup drive for my computer (where most of my digital images live). Of course, in reality, it’d be best to just get out, grabbing what’s next to you. Though most pics are now digital, it’s likely these reminders of older memories are in an album or box irreplaceable if caught in the flames. There’s a certain logic to the top pick of cards and money – at least with access to cash you can get a hotel room or buy some essentials such as clothes and toiletries if the worst were to happen.Īs long as you are insured, you’d be able to replace most of your belongings, which is probably why photographs were the second most popular choice (35%). The survey by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) asked people what two possessions they’d save if they had three minutes, assuming there was no-one else on the premises – meaning there’s no need to consider the kids or the cat.

Things you save in a fire