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17 April 2007
What’s the first thing that you’d save→[More:]Other than your family, if your house (god forbid) was burning?
Since the cats are family, probably my purse and my backpack. They have my id, my laptop, a bit of knitting and some books inside, so it's like a little sanity survival kit. Oh, and my glasses. Can't drive without them.
My family's house actually did burn when I was 11, and we lost a lot. The photo albums and files and my dad's guitar all survived the fire and water damage, thankfully. And we were able to replace most of the other stuff with insurance money. There is nothing of mine from early childhood, though, no special blankies or stuffed animals or keepsakes. Most of the furniture and clothes went kaput.
It's not as big a deal as you might think, IF you can save those photos and papers. Everything else is pretty much replaceable. Focus on the irreplaceable.
When my house mostly burned down in fifth grade the first thing I grabbed when I got the chance was a couple stuffed animals. (My real cat was already dead from smoke inhalation.)
If my house burned down now I would grab my cat and dogs. If I had more time I would probably grab my cell phone and computer.
It's not that I'm okay with everything else going up in flames - it's just that the older I get the more I don't care about possessions. Saving the cell phone and computer would be more about laziness than caring. I just wouldn't want to deal with getting new stuff and having to get those things "just so" again.
I've been thinking about this for an hour and I have no idea. After family and kitties everything else gets flat. All the family history and documents and photos are digitized and in more than one location so that's not really a worry. I would lose a lot of stuff that is important to me but I really don't know what would be most important.
The sprinklers would cut in immediately, so I'd better leave the photos where they're stashed. Maybe grab my cat and my sling bag (wallet and phone are in it) and keys on the way out the door.
Been there, done that... all I grabbed was my purse (contained wallet, keys, phone) and a pair of shoes, which I put on when I got outside. Had I a pet at the time I would have grabbed her, too.
When I was, hm... 21 or so, a girl in my apartment building responded to a "you need to pay your rent or get out" notice by torching her unit, starting in the kitchen.
Thankfully, the fire fighters got there just in time. Her unit was gutted, but the damage didn't spread. Good thing, too, as we were immediate neighbors! All I had was smoke damage, and the worst injury was some bruses to a woman on the second floor who had to be taken out via a window (at seven months pregnant, no less!)
The cats and dog are part of the family; so I'd grab my computer, Bucephelus & gargoyle, purse and the few family photos I have (they're conveniently on my desk).
Gliders, book of bhajans (absoulutely irreplaceable and one of a kind, am making note to have a copy made ASAP), photos. I feel like I'm forgetting something, though...
I'd probably spend too much precious time trying to grab our three cats. If, and that's a huge if, possible (and the cats were grabbed by some of the five other people living with me) I'd grab our "box" that has the polcies, birth certificates, etc. That, and my grandfather's PHD thesis and the family geneology book. That's irreplaceable.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
