How I Survived a Car Fire
Originally written on October 7, 2024 for a writing class. I always wanted to make the news, but not like this. The Hamilton Spectator wrote on June 24, 2016: “Two lanes of the Fort Erie-bound QEW were shut down Friday around 5 p.m. after a car caught fire near Bartlett Avenue in Grimsby. Ontario Provincial Police and the Grimsby Fire Department responded, with firefighters dousing the flames. Both lanes re-opened before 6 p.m.” Here’s the real story: I had been working in Waterloo, training for my new job as a communications assistant at the Wilfrid Laurier University Students’ Union. It had been two weeks since I had been home, as I was living out of my parents’ house in Guelph versus commuting. My vehicle, a 1998 Chrylser Interpid (or “Intepid” as I called it, because someone stole the “R”), was a hand-me-down from my grandfather, via my mother, after my sister decided it was not the car for her. My car before that was a 1996 Pontiac Grand Am, nicknamed “Piece O’Shy...