I was at station 14 as a firefighter. 14 was a training station where we trained all of the new probies. We trained full companies in ladder evolutions, we had a drafting pit so that we could show the companies how to suck water out of the ground into their pump and then put it in their hose lines. I was there for about 6 years, so we had a lot of experience in drilling different companies and new firefighters. Sundays were refrigerator days, so you had to clean out the fridge and get rid of all the food that was unused. So one Sunday evening, myself and another firefighter decided to take all of that food out of the refrigerator and make a stoup (which is a combination of stew and soup) in one of the 2.5 gallon buckets that we typically use to wash the walls and the tires on the rig and things like that. We cooked it up on the stove, and the Captain and Engineer were furious, no they weren’t happy at all with us doing that. But there was nothing they could really say because we told them it was going to be our lunch. So later that evening, we took our bucket and we put it back in the refrigerator, and we left it there. 

Next shift, we came back and we put it back on the stove. At this point, the Captain and Engineer were absolutely fuming about it. We didn’t really eat it. We just put it in our bowls and stirred it around to make it look like we were. 

So then this probationary firefighter comes in, and they are supposed to have brought a sack lunch because they’re from another company. But he looked at our stoup, and he said, “That looks good! Can I buy in?” We told him he could have it for nothing! He ate four bowls of that old food cooked in a 2.5 gallon bucket that we used to wash the rig, and tires, and walls, and stuff like that. We were sitting there waiting for him to die, and trying to decide what we were going to tell the Chief when he got called in because we killed a Firefighter. But he didn’t even get sick!

After this lunch, we were going to put the stoup back in the refrigerator again, but the Captain couldn’t take it any longer. He stepped between us, and said “I don’t care what you do, but that stoup is leaving the station. Get rid of it!” So we had to take it into the bathroom and pour it down the toilet and wash the bucket out so we could wash the tires again. But that was really funny, waiting to see what would happen to that kid who ate so much of the stoup.