I’m working night shift in the NOC, so I spent most of Friday sleeping. It was a good sleep. The kind where you don’t even need your alarm clock because you just know you’re going to wake up about an hour early, refreshed and ready to go. That kind. Though I’m not the superstitious type, this sleep preceeded what turned out to be one of the luckiest Friday the 13ths of my life. It all began with smoke.

I didn’t see it right away, of course. No - I was actually awakened by the sound of someone banging on my neighbor’s door. It was an odd, irregular banging, but banging nonetheless. Yelling. A woman running away while screaming something unintelligible. Typical everyday occurences for my neighborhood; I went back to sleep. A moment later I was awakened again by a distant siren. Said siren sounded suspiciously like my own security system going off (sample - noisy), but I was in that half-awake, half-asleep dream world where nothing makes sense. I didn’t pay it much attention, and in fact tried to go back to sleep, more annoyed than anything else. But even in my sleepy-time daydream world, I noticed that the siren was slowly getting louder.

There is no worse sound in the world than a siren stopping in front of your house.

I got out of bed, shuffled over to the window, pulled back the curtain, and saw smoke. Lots and lots and lots of smoke. There were flames coming out from my neighbor’s crawlspace and smoke coming from everywhere. It was then that I noticed that my own house was looking a little hazy.

I’ve run through this a thousand times in my head. If my house ever catches on fire, there are two things that I will do. First, my handgun gets tossed in my fireproof safe. The notion of 250 rounds of .40-caliber ammunition lighting up and going off is catastrophic at best; the safe should be thick enough to keep the heat out, or, worst comes to worst, keep the rounds in. Second, my cats get tossed in the carrier and leave with me. All of this adds ten seconds to my exit time. Friday, however, it seemed to take an hour. I ran out the door, cat crate in tow, just in time to see flames breaking through my neighbor’s side wall.

The high winds we had on Friday were blowing the flames towards my house and driveway. When the smoke devoured my house, I had to leave my yard and head to the end of the block. When I turned around to look back, the smoke had been blown in another direction, and my house was visible. The sickening feeling I felt when I saw smoke start to pour out of my vent pipes and chimney is indescribable. When my cell phone rang, I knew it was my alarm company calling without even looking at the screen. Sure enough, they were calling to inform me that my master bedroom, living room, and dining room smoke detectors were all going off, and would I like to summon the fire department. I don’t remember what I said in response.

One of the other neighbors approached and told me that my siding had melted off. I navigated my way through the maze of tankers (at least a half dozen fire companies responded) to a place where I could safely see the front of my house. Sure enough, my siding looked like someone had tried to cover my wall with a badly-hung bedsheet. Somehow, that turned out to be the worst damage that my house took - melted siding. Given that my home is nearly 20 years old, the existing siding is somewhat faded and will consequently be impossible to match, so it looks like my insurance company is going to have to shell out to reside my entire house.

One of the firefighters explained that as he was coming around the back of my neighbor’s house with a line, he saw ten-foot flames shooting towards my house. Given that the two houses are only separated by 15 feet of grass, my house was in imminent danger of burning down. He immediately ordered in another line, and the firefighters shifted from trying to save my neighbor’s house to trying to prevent a second house — my home — from going up.

When it was all over, my house was fine. Smoky, but fine. The smoke from my neighbor’s house was so dense that it filled my house just enough to trip my smoke detectors. The smoke I saw rising from my vents was most likely that very smoke simply venting out. My final damage? I lost some siding, my car needs a total repaint, and I missed a day of work. My insurance should cover everything, and his should pick up my deductible.

Oh yeah - and a former employer finally (with a little convincing from the Department of Labor & Industry) sent me a long-overdue commission check, which I received Friday.

Summary of the story? My Friday the 13th, all things considered, turned out to be pretty damn lucky.