The Hero (me)

Here is what happened. I was innocently walking down the street not too long when I started to smell smoke. As I continued along the sidewalk, I could see a house was on fire. There was a woman standing in front of the burning house wearing only an oversized T-shirt that read "Who let the cats out?" screaming, "My cat is inside! Someone help me!"

I was scared, yeah, but I guess the adrenaline took over. I ran inside despite not being able to see through the smoke. I could barely breathe, and I could feel the flames singeing my beautiful, curly arm hairs.

A few minutes later I reemerged through a wall of smoke - in slow motion they tell me - covered in soot and cradling something precious in my arms.

I approached the hysterical woman and said, "I didn't find your cat, ma'am. Pretty sure your cat is dead. Probably burned to death in the fire. But I did find this ... "

And with that I dramatically pulled back the protective towel to reveal that I had, just barely, saved her 1996 Jim Edmonds baseball card. It was still smoking, but it was alive.

"Don't call me a hero," I said to the woman. "Just doing my job.

"I'm a baseball card blogger."

And with that I walked toward the sunset as the house burned down to the ground behind me. Then I turned around and said, "Oh - and sorry it's no longer in 'mint condition,'" and I did air quotes when I said mint condition. "I did my best."

Years later a really cool baseball artist would use a laser to etch an unintelligible baseball image into the burnt area. It was cool because it really represented how laser-y Jim Edmonds was as a baseball player. He was always like a laser, with the way he played baseball, and I think the laser artist did a decent job of capturing that.

This is a true story and if anyone would like to check, just Google something.