Blame Canada

Yesterday I said that working at the shelter was very far from boring - and today was a great example. Reception was pretty quiet except for a cop sitting there waiting to talk to one of the staff. He disappeared for two seconds, and while he was gone one of the homeless guys ran into reception, hurriedly picked up all his stuff, and legged it outside! It didn't take me long to figure out he's wanted by the cops, but I don't really want to know what for.

I was just pondering this when two other street kids (I say 'kids', but they're all in their late teens and early twenties) ran in and shouted "Fire!" Sure enough, the back alley was filled with smoke because someone set fire to our endless mound of garbage. I was just paging everyone with a fire extinguisher to the back door, when I was told we had to evacuate the building! So half my morning was spent listening to firemen complain about our garbage problem while they tried to extinguish the blaze.

And the thing is, I've just put two and two together. The kid in the first paragraph running from the cops? Prime suspect - his nickname is Pyro.