We had just returned from a particularly gruesome call. Kids in our area like to go “hill-hopping”. That’s when they take daddy’s Beamer to the roller-coaster-like hills in the rural, wooded area of our district and go fast enough to grab some air. Sometimes they land back on the pavement, and sometimes they don’t. When they don’t, we get called.

Looking for a little respite, the boys trooped into the kitchen.

“Hey, check this out,” shouted Al as he peered into the freezer. We shared one fridge with all three shifts, so there’s always a fair amount of scrounging.

He pulled out a quart of Breyer’s and pointed at the lid. There, scrawled in black sharpie was “RED, DO NOT TOUCH!!!!!!”

Red shift had “marked” their ice cream.

Like a dog marks a tree.

“This is just wrong,” Bruce said ripping off the lid and spooning a huge chunk into his mouth. “Wha-eva havven to buvverhood?” he mouthed, chowing down on the mint chocolate chip.

“Yeah. Brotherhood,” we chimed in, each grabbing a spoon and digging into the carton like puppies at a nipple. We didn’t stop until we had polished off the forbidden fruit.

What the hell is wrong with those guys? Sure, it’s understandable to label a pack of good steaks or some special item once in awhile, but this was not the first time. It wasn’t even the tenth time- this had become “an issue”.

This was something that could no longer be ignored; it deserved an answer- loud and clear.

We on black shift were good at answering. Sometimes we answered too well and got our noses thumped with a newspaper from the bugles, but we usually found a way to straddle the line. And the end result was that a message was sent- and a message was received.

Immediately, all the food in the fridge found its way onto the kitchen counter. Armed with sharpies, we each began marking all the food- leftover lasagna, half a head of cauliflower, 4 cans of pop all got the label “RED.”

Sticks of butter, yogurt cups, tomatoes. “RED.”

A carton of eggs were marked “RED” on the outside, then all the individual eggs were marked with little “R’s” to connote ownership.

Some of the eggs were even drained of their contents with a sub-Q syringe and replaced with tomato juice. Red.

RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED. In the pantry cabinets, bread was marked “RED” along with Styrofoam cups and plastic utensils.

Aluminum foil was unrolled, marked, and meticulously re-rolled. Oreos, oyster crackers, banana peppers- all got marked.

We were pleased to find out how embarrassed the tightwads on red shift were when they had been called on the absurd level of frugality. It was all the news, and never forgotten.

We are brothers, dammit. If you want some of my nummies, well then help yourself, my friend. None of this “DO NOT TOUCH” crap in our house.

John Mitchell is a Lieutenant on the Barrington (IL) fire department. He is a paramedic, fire and EMS instructor, certified fire investigator and Chicago Blackhawks fan. He is the editor of FireDaily.com.