Broad Squad - Great Northwest

Someone coughed, "...broad squad...". It stuck. The semi-anti-feminist in me (double, partial negative intended) said, "Yeah. I like that."

The cougher meant it as a legless joke and no doubt ended up a wee bit uncomfortable when I announced that we would be called The Broad Squad. The girls didn't mind. None of us found it in any way offensive. Of course, the men among us never breathed the term again, afraid of some slanderous lawsuit claiming harassment of one form or another. But the joke lingered through muffled smiles of our male counterparts while we ladies were happily strutting this culturally 'racey' title.

I was in charge. Three of us ladies and a big old fire engine. Why not? It was in keeping with the times of elevating women into traditionally male dominated roles.

So, the day we Broad Squadettes blazed out of the fire station, code red and ran into a local crew resurfacing part of the mountain highway was my first note-worthy test as a squad boss. A long-bearded local with a stop sign came to the engine window to talk to me. "Sir, we are responding to a fire. Can you get us past this road block fast?"

After seeing me and looking passed me to my crew, his jaw drops and instead of getting on his radio to let us pass, he stands on my engine step to get a closer look. He says, "You're all women..??!!"

I roll my eyes. "Yeah. You're right." I can't tell if he's more bewildered that we're all beautiful women or simply women.  We were way up in the forest where women were not so common to begin with and he didn't look like the type who went to town often.

"Sir, I have a fire to put out. If you choose not to let us pass, I'm taking you With us. And, I'm not as sweet as I look when bossing people around a fire."

He stumbled off the engine step at that, yelling into his radio, "Fire engine with three Women coming through...".

I rolled my eyes again. Men.

The Broad Squad laughed All the way to the fire, which turned out to be a simple 1/8 of an acre lightning strike kicking around on flat ground beneath the tree it started in.  Piece of cake to put out with Beauty (the name I coined for the engine we used at the moment). It was fun, and rather educational to the long-bearded fellow still reeling from his discovery that women Can drive an operate fire engines.