The Ziebart Experience

If you read my blog on a regular basis, you’ve probably seen the picture above. It’s a picture of my lawn from a few weeks ago, with a view of the back of my garage. It doesn’t look like that anymore. I would go as far as to say it looks completely different now. Let me show you…

Yeah. It’s torched. Completely and utterly. About three days ago, around 3 pm, the garage went up in flames. We have no idea what caused it, but the popular theory right now is that the fire was electrical. It seems to have started at the very top of the garage, which would imply wiring. You can’t see it very well from the angle above, but the very top of the garage is pitch black. The shingles you can see from this comparison angle are in surprisingly good shape. The other side of the garage is black, probably because that’s where a majority of the flammable material was. You know, things like a goddamn car. More details (and pictures) behind the link below.

Like I said, it happened around three days ago. I guess ‘surreal’ would be one way to describe it, but I’m not sure if it’s the right way. I’m pretty infamous for reacting to catastrophe very, very differently than most everyone else, so this happening didn’t really bother me. It barely phased me at all. I was completely oblivious to anything happening at all at first, I was busy working on something for work when it happened. I was mostly just really annoyed that somebody was suddenly banging on our door and ringing the doorbell. I assumed it was just a neighborhood kid being annoying or something like that. Note: The window of my office looks directly at the garage. If I turn my head, I’m looking right at its ruined remains, but I didn’t notice smoke billowing out of it at all. I opened the door, and my neighbor says to me, “My fucking car is on fire, man!” Then he runs by me. I was still largely unphased by it, even with the other neighbors panicking and running through my yard yelling ‘fire, fire!’ I just sort of went, “Huh, that’s weird” and went to tell my girlfriend.

I was concerned for a moment when the fire flared up and looked like the wind was blowing it towards our house, but that worry was brief. The fire department got things under control at that point, so it just went back to being odd. I was honestly more disappointed that I couldn’t go back in the house to get my camera while it was still burning, that would have been some awesome footage. Instead, we only have aftermath pictures.

Again, ask almost anybody that knows me personally: My luck is terrible. I’m not talking that sort of bad luck that people use as justification for things going poorly via neglect. No no, I mean some cosmic bullshit. Anybody who I’m near will be absorbed into my bubble of shitty lucky. That car there? As far as we know the goddamn thing is ruined because my garage decided to spontaneously combust. And the neighbors’ other car? They had to park it out on the street because our driveway is full of rubble. Know what happened? Yeah.

Someone hit it right out in front of our house at 2 AM and totally totaled it. This is my fault. I did this. The universe hates me so much that it destroyed both of our neighbors’ cars within three days.  This is not random happenstance. This is God telling me that he’s pissed. This has been my entire life. And endless stream of disasters. People wonder why I don’t react very strongly to things, and this is why. I have been desensitized. If my front lawn were to burst open and Satan himself rose from the Earth’s depths to wreck up my house, it would be just another day. I’d hit up Twitter, describe the Devil’s shenanigans in 140 characters or less, and move on with life.

You know what makes this whole thing even better? I have to wait a few weeks for the city to bring me new garbage cans, so I get to ninja my way up and down the alley depositing my trash in other peoples’ garbage cans. Do you know how possessive people can be about their trash cans? It’s frightening.

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