Here it is, my day off. I'm snoozing on the couch dreaming about Salma Hayek coming to her senses and realizing what a stud I am when I am unceremoniously awakened by a frantic pounding on my door. The nice lady at the door tells me "Your truck is on fire." Well, that's not normal. So out into the front yard I go wearing my favorite Sponge Bob boxer shorts and observe a 12 ft collumn of flame rising from my trucks hood. Since the neighbors were nice enough to call the fire department for me I thought it might be nice to try and minimize the potential danger to them and began snatching all my police gear bags out of the back of the truck. You know, the ones containing a couple hundred rounds of 12 ga, .223, and .40. I managed to get most of it before the cab turned into a complete fireball. Good thing I bailed when I did, because when the gas line went I had a 30 ft fireball where my beloved F150 used to sit. Then the magazines I didn't get out in time cooked off. Kind of like the fourth of July in Hell. The heat was so intense it melted the siding right off my house. Finally the fire department got there and were nice enough to extinguish the conflaguration before it consumed my neighbors house. I tried to convince them to let my roof go, as I need a new one anyway, but no good. I've seen a lot of car fires. I've never seen destruction as complete as this. It melted all the aluminum out of my engine block. It melted the front wheels. It melted the entire interior. I was able to salvage my rear fender. And a pair of handcuffs, which miraculously enough still function. Peerless aparently builds quality cuffs. Right now what I'm most upset about is that my vest burned and I had my grandfathers police ID from 1965 in the trauma pouch as a good luck totem. He died in 82 and the ID was my last link to him. That hurts.
So what started the fire you ask? Well it seems, according to the nice fireman, that Ford put out a recall in Febuary or so about the cruise control in the 01 F150s after they learned that the switch could short and cause your truck to turn into a raging inferno. They apparently weren't kidding. Shame I never got that recall notice. Would have been nice. I mean its not like a loose gas cap or emmision control problems that they forgot to tell me about. This thing went up like a T72 in Irag after a hit from an M1. I've called the insurance claim in, but it seems to me that Ford may have some responsibility here.
So now I'm sitting here in a bit of shock and trying to process the total loss. 13K for the truck, about 2K damage to the house, and at least 5K in personal property and police equipment that I wasn't able to get out of the vehicle. Looks like my knife buying days are done for awhile. I'd post some pictures of the ruin, but my camera was in the friggin truck.
I'm now going to consume enough beer to make this a bit more palatable.
So what started the fire you ask? Well it seems, according to the nice fireman, that Ford put out a recall in Febuary or so about the cruise control in the 01 F150s after they learned that the switch could short and cause your truck to turn into a raging inferno. They apparently weren't kidding. Shame I never got that recall notice. Would have been nice. I mean its not like a loose gas cap or emmision control problems that they forgot to tell me about. This thing went up like a T72 in Irag after a hit from an M1. I've called the insurance claim in, but it seems to me that Ford may have some responsibility here.
So now I'm sitting here in a bit of shock and trying to process the total loss. 13K for the truck, about 2K damage to the house, and at least 5K in personal property and police equipment that I wasn't able to get out of the vehicle. Looks like my knife buying days are done for awhile. I'd post some pictures of the ruin, but my camera was in the friggin truck.
I'm now going to consume enough beer to make this a bit more palatable.
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