What I Would Grab If The House Caught Fire

I was lying in bed last night, trying to think of something to think about to send me to sleep, when a conversation I had had with my landlady popped into my head. It was about fire alarms, and how the house now has nice shiny new ones that you can’t remove the battery from, irrespective of how unburnt the toast is. Obviously, this lead me to the thought, “what would I do, if I woke up to find the house on fire?” – clearly a train of thought to settle the heart and mind before turning to sleep. My answer came in a variety of steps:

1. Have I died from smoke inhalation?
2. No.
3. Good.
4. Could I climb out of the window?
5. Yes.
6. Could I take anything with me?
7. Laptop… personal letters… camera. (The thoughts arrived in my head in that order. Like a cartoon car pile-up, except with fewer cars, and more thought-y.)
8. Guitars?
9. No, they’re rubbish anyway, and I could claim on insurance, and get better ones.
10. Would God frown upon fraudulent insurance claims?
11. Yes, probably.
12. Does thinking of that as a possibility make me a bad person?
13. Yes, probably.
14. Is thinking about the possibility of losing the majority of my worldly possessions in a fire, and the bureaucratic nightmare of an insurance claim that will inevitably follow, going to help me sleep?
15. No, probably not.
16. Should I blog about this in the morning?
17. Oh, go on then.

The laptop and letters were chosen for sentimental reasons. The camera was because it’s light, and would fit nicely in my rucksack, although a new one via the means of an insurance claim (fraudulent or otherwise) is making me rethink that decision.

If you could save anything from a fire, what would it be and why?