Hi Mum, it's Sammy (Clone 59 - Part 8)

Charlie was good to his little sister in the morning. He noticed that Donna was feeling a bit alone and wandered into her room.

Sunny is a night owl because of her work. I've been sleeping late because there's always an emergency last thing in the day. So I'm late getting home, late getting everything done for the evening and late to bed.

So when Charlie noticed that little Donna was getting very hungry, he brought her a bottle.

Now we recently decided to buy a water slide for the kids. It's been rather warm, this should be a great way for them to cool off.

Of course, you really should test anything like this in case there's something wrong with it. A bit of quality control before one of the children uses it and gets hurt.

It seems to work pretty well. I tried it several times, and no problems.

Well, up until my last try. I seemed to have strained a muscle jumping in.

Still, it seems safe enough. If the kids want to play, it will cool them off quite nicely. I'll just warn Charlie to watch how he jumps into the slide.

Still putting in what time I can to teaching Donna to talk. She's finally starting to get the hang of it a little. But she's still not talking and it's time for me to head off.

Officially, now that I'm assistant fire chief, I only work 5 hours a day.

That's a really great theory. In practice, I know that something will pop up and keep me from going home at quitting time. It hasn't failed to happen once since I started this job.

Today, some machine in the hospital shorted. The short somehow caused a lightning strike on the building.

That resulted in every machine in the building arcing out. It's very dangerous, they are having to evacuate the hospital and some patients won't last long away from the machines.

Wait, isn't that Moe Pesce again? Are these disasters following him around or what?

"My lab! It all started in my lab. Someone has to stop this before it ruins all the equipment!"


"I'll do my best, Doctor Pesce."

I had to wear a special version of the uniform. Fire retardants are not going to be terribly useful here. 

The entire building was having problems by the time I got there. It took me some time to work out what I could do to solve the arcing.

After a couple of hours, I found how to ground some of the major electricity outlets, which stopped the lightning strikes, which stopped the arcing. Once the crisis was over, someone else could take over the cleanup and safely getting the power back online.

I was going to go home after another long day.

Poor Charlie had a little accident with the chemistry set. He didn't seem to be too hurt by it but I think I might encourage him to try using that toy oven and selling baked goods. It seems safer.

I had a side trip on the way home. I went to city hall. They wanted to give me a medal for stopping that hospital disaster before anyone died.

Even Pesce's equipment should be fine. For all the electricity, the hospital equipment came out remarkable well.

Fortunately, Charlie really wasn't hurt too badly. A quick shower and he's off playing again.

What is it with that boy? Any time he gets really clean, it's straight to the sand box and instantly dirty again.

I noticed our little princess was getting tired. So I put her in the crib.

Then I started to read her some nursery rhymes. It was going well and Donna had nearly decided to sleep. Which was a good thing in my books, I was pretty exhausted myself and tomorrow is not likely to be any better.

Then my blasted phone started to ring and she was wide awake and screaming again.

Ok, I love my job and I love that people appreciate us. But why do a lot of them insist on ringing at midnight to tell me about it? Look what they've done to Donna.

So I was stuck with a screaming toddler. I ended up picking her back up, cuddling her and walking around some. Then finally put her back in the crib.

Thank god, the second time she dropped straight off. I don't think I could have stayed awake much longer.

Poor Sunny had a restless time as well.

But hers was for a much happier reason. Baby three is on the way.

Amelia gave Donna some more encouragement with walking and finally our little girl has the hang of standing on two feet to get around.

Still, one of the best reasons to be a fireman. Go to the top of the building just so you can slide down these puppies.

Almost enough to make you build a second story just so you can have one. Though with 2 little ones and another on the way, it would probably not be the best decision that I ever made.

I suggested to Sunny that maybe it was time to hire a maid since she is pregnant, and we both have jobs we love.  I didn't have to offer that twice.

I wish our future maid luck, Sunny is such a perfectionist that she'll probably either pester them to clean again or go back and do it according to her standards. I anticipate a high turnover rate of domestics.

I've had another call out. This one is a very big house fire.

First obstacle for this fire, tell idiot to remove himself from the scene.

"You have to help her! Agnes is trapped somewhere in the house."

"Bart Inkbeard, right? You have to get further from the house."

"But Agnes is trapped."

"You told me and I'll do my best to get her out safely. You have to move further back, the sparks are flying everywhere and it's no help to Agnes if you to get hurt."

"But!"

I bellowed, "Run, damn it! Get away from here." Fortunately, he finally took notice of who I was and ran off a safer distance.

Then I had to battle the blaze shooting from the windows of the house. Instinct told me not to open the door until there was no longer any flames coming from the windows.

It took what felt like hours to subdue the fire enough that I could enter the house.

The heat from the fire had sealed the door. I had to use an axe to gain entry to the house.

It took a few blows before the door finally swung open.

Once I was in, I started the hunt for Agnes, making sure I knew a safe route for her to leave the house.

She was panicking upstairs. It took a few tries before she finally realised that rescue had arrived.

"Agnes!"

"Agnes! Come on!" Finally I grabbed her and started to lead her out of the house. Once she was moving, it wasn't hard to convince her to run outside and stay well away until I gave the all clear.

The rest of the time was spent battling the blaze. It took me quite a while to find and extinguish all the larger and smaller flames in the house.

Finally, at nearly midnight, I could give the all clear and go home to my warm and comfy bed. I was hungry and dirty but those could wait until I had some sweet sweet sleep.