The Cannatown fire department was called to 420 Beasley St. Thursday night, to contain a small fireplace fire gone wrong for none other than occasional contributor to Dispatches, Mr. Hugh Jollydab. The blaze was contained and put out by 5:20am, but not before destroying much of Jollydab’s living room. 

Fire Chief Higgins reported that the ordeal actually began with a plumbing issue, for which a unit was dispatched to address at around 11:30pm, just a few hours earlier, when a clog caused the tenant’s toilet to explode. “There wasn’t much we could do to help with that mess except console those affected,” Higgins said. According to the report, a heap of used bathroom towels was used to wipe up the mess in the small, 6x6 bathroom, but it was not enough to stop the flood of sewage that leaked deep into the flooring and began raining in the building’s converted cellar. 

Mr. Jollydab proceeded to place a large fan in the bathroom, in order to dry the area, then set off to clean the “man-cave” directly below. “It was there that he encountered what he believed to be a huge buzzing noise in the ceiling,” Higgins reported. Upon closer examination, Jollydab determined the source of the buzzing to be a large hornet’s nest. Unable to locate the hive, or remove the drywall, the tenant “smashed through the ceiling using a nearby hatchet,” haphazardly removing drywall, wood and insulation, until a three-foot hole to the ground floor confirmed that the hive was indeed, the “large box fan in the soiled bathroom.”

While not directly related to the ordeal, the fire that engulfed the living room began when Jollydab, forgetting the demolished pieces of wall and other debris in his own fireplace, lit ablaze a giant fire in the hearth, using huge, fat shwag-bricks as he reeled exhausted from his cleanup efforts. It wasn’t long, before the crummy, dry cannabis filled the air with intoxicating fumes strong enough to momentarily debilitate anyone within a five-house radius. “It sure got everyone high for a moment,” said Higgins, “but this just ain’t the way to do it. You know, Safety First.”